MlNNESOTH 

Chxirch Club Lectures 

1896 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No. 

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MINNESOTA 

CHURCH CLUB LECTURES. 

1896. 



UNITY 



Xambetb ^Declaration 

LECTURES 

Y UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 

Minnesota Church Club, 
1896. 



TOGETHER WITH THE SERMON BY THE 

Rt Ret), fl.fi. MPbtppU, DJD., «ffi.D M 

BISHOP OF MINNESOTA, 

At the First Session of the Lambeth Conference, 

July 3, 1888. 



SIX** ° f e °Vffle^ 



JUM J ins*' 



Milwaukee : 
THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO 





•AiMs 



Copyright^ by 

FRANK 0. OSBORNE, Secretary, 

Minnesota Church Club. 

In trust for benefit of said Club. 

1896. 



XTable of Contents, 



Address in Lambeth Chapel, July 3, 1888. 

By the Rt. Rev. H. B. Whipple, D.D., LL.D., 

Bishop of Minnesota 11 

I. Organic Unity. 

By the Rt. Rev. M. N. Gilbert, D.D., Coadjutor 

Bishop of Minnesota 33 

II. The Holy Scriptures. 

By the Rev. Harry P. Nichols, Rector of St. 

Mark's Church, Minneapolis 61 

III. The Creed. 

By the Rev. John Wright, Rector of St. PauVs 
Church, St. Paul ...... 89 

IV. The Sacraments. 

By the Rev. John J. Faude, Rector of Geth- 

semane Church, Minneapolis 121 

Y. The Historic Episcopate. 

By the Rev. Wm. P. Ten Broeck, Professor of 
Ecclesiastical History, Seabury Divinity 
School, Faribault 141 



preface. 



T^HE Church Club of Minnesota has the pleas- 
ure of presenting in print herewith the first 
series of Lectures delivered under its auspices. 
These lectures were given during the past Lent 
in Christ Church, St. Paul, and Gethsemane 
Church, Minneapolis . The primary purpose was 
to interest our own people in the great subject 
of Church Unity through the instruction which 
it was felt would be given by the various lec- 
turers. An expressed desire for publication could 
not well be refused, and it is the further hope 
that publication will secure that more extended 
hearing which the importance of the subject and 
the admirable treatment thereof by the lectur- 
ers fully deserves. 

The Club desires to express its grateful ap- 
preciation to the Reverend the Clergy who 



PREFACE. 

have helped to inaugurate a special work in 
Ecclesiastical circles, which the Club feels confi- 
dent will redound to the prosperity of Christ's 
Church Militant. 



Sermon. 

BY THE RT. REV. H. B. WHIPPLE, D.D., LL.D, 



BISHOP OF MINNESOTA. 



UNITY 

AND THE 

Xambetb ^Declaration* 



Bfcfcress in Xambetb Cbapel 

At the first session of the Lambeth Conference, July 3d, 

1888. 

By the Rt. Rev. H. B. Whipple, D.D., LL.D., 
Bishop of Minnesota. 

AJ\ OST Reverend and Right Reverend Breth- 
ren: No assembly is fraught with such 
awful responsibility to God, as a council of the 
Bishops of His Church. Since the Holy Spirit 
presided in the first council of Jerusalem, faithful 
souls have looked with deep interest to the de- 
liberations of those whom Christ has made the 
shepherds of His flock, and to whom He gave 
His promise, u Lo, I am with you alway to the 
end of the world." The responsibility is greater 
when division has marred the beauty of the 



12 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

Lamb's Bride. Our words and acts will surely 
hasten or (which God forbid) retard the reunion 
of Christendom. Feeling the grave responsi- 
bility which is imposed upon me to-day, my 
heart cries out as did the prophets, "I am a 
child and cannot speak." Pray for me, vener- 
able brethren, that God may help me to obey 
His word — ''Whatsoever I command, that shalt 
thou speak." I would kneel with you at our 
Master's feet and pray that "the Holy Spirit 
may guide us in all truth." We meet as the rep- 
resentatives of national Churches ; each with its 
own peculiar responsibility to God for the souls 
intrusted to its care ; each with all the rights of 
a national Church, to adapt itself to the vary- 
ing conditions of human society; and each 
bound to preserve the order, the faith, the sacra- 
ments, and the worship of the Catholic Church 
for which it is a trustee. As we kneel by the 
table of our common Lord we remember separ- 
ated brothers. Division has multiplied divi- 
sion until infidelity sneers at Christianity as 
an effete superstition, and the modern Sadducee, 



ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL. 13 

more bold than his Jewish brother, denies the 
existence of God. Millions for whom Christ 
died have not so much as heard that there is a 
Saviour. It will heal no divisions to say, Who 
is at fault ? The sin of schism does not lie at one 
door. If one has sinned by self-will, the other 
has sinned as deeply by lack of charity and love. 
The way to reunion looks difficult. To man it 
is impossible. No human eirenicon can bridge 
the gulf of separation. There are unkind words 
to be taken back, alienations to be healed, and 
heartburnings to be forgiven. When we are 
blind, God can make a way. When "the God 
of Peace " rules in all Christian hearts, our 
Lord's prayer will be answered — " That they all 
may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I 
in Thee, that they all may be one in Us, that the 
world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." 
No one branch of the Church is absolutely by 
itself alone the Catholic Church ; all branches 
need reunion in order to the completeness of the 
Church. There are blessed signs that the Holy 
Spirit is quickening Christian hearts to seek for 



14 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

unity. We all know that this divided Christian- 
ity cannot conquer the world. At a time when 
every form of error and sin is banded together 
to oppose the kingdom of Christ, the world 
needs the witness of a united Church. Men 
must hear again the voice which peals through 
the lapse of centuries bearing witness to ' ■ the 
faith once delivered to the saints," or else for 
many souls there will be only rationalism and 
unbelief— while this sad weary world, so full of 
sin and sorrow, is pleading for help, it is a 
wrong to Christ and to the souls for whom He 
died that His children should be separated in 
rival folds. As baptized into Christ we are 
brothers. Notwithstanding the hedges of hu- 
man opinions which men have builded in the 
garden of the Lord, all who look for salvation 
alone through faith in Jesus Christ do hold the 
great verities of Divine Faith. The opinions 
which separate us are not necessary to be be- 
lieved in order to salvation. The truths in 
which we agree are parts of the Catholic Faith. 
The Holy Spirit has passed over these human 



ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL. 15 

barriers, and set His seal to the labors of separ- 
ated brethren in Christ, and rewarded them in 
the salvation of many precious souls. The 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the renewing 
and sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost are 
the same in the peasant in the cottage and in the 
emperor on the throne. They share with us in 
the long line of confessors and martyrs for 
Christ. We would not rob them of one sheaf 
which they have gathered in the garner of the 
Lord. We rejoice that Churches with a like his- 
toric lineage with us are seeking reunion, 
Churches whose Faith has been dimmed by 
coldness or clouded by error are being quickened 
into new life from the Incarnate Son of God. 

Our hearts go out in loving sympathy to the 
Old Catholics of Europe and America, whose 
names always will be linked with Selwyn, Wil- 
berforce, and Wordsworth, Whittingham, Ker- 
foot, and Brown, in defence of the Faith. It is 
with deep sorrow that we remember that the 
Church of Rome has separated herself from the 
teachings of the primitive Church by additions 



16 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

to the Faith once delivered to the saints, and by 
claiming for its Bishop prerogatives which belong 
only to the Divine Head of the Church. While 
we honor the devotion and zeal of her mission- 
ary heroes, and rejoice at the good works of 
multitudes of her children, we lament that lack 
of charity which anathematizes disciples of 
Christ who have carried the Gospel to the ends 
of the earth. 

We bless God's Holy Name for the fraternal 
work which has been carried on under the guid- 
ance of the See of Canterbury, and which we 
trust will lead ancient Churches to a deeper per- 
sonal Faith in Jesus Christ. 

We are sad that some of our kinsmen in 
Christ, children of one mother, have forsaken 
her ways. God can over-rule even this sorrow, 
so that it shall fall out to the furtherance of the 
Gospel. They must take with them precious 
memories of the love and the faith of the mother 
whom they have forsaken, and of the liberty 
wherewith the truth in Christ has made her 
children free — under God these may be a link in 



ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL. 17 

the chain of His providence to the restoration of 
unity. It is a singular providence that at this 
period of the world's history, when marvellous 
discoveries have united the people of divers 
tongues in common interests He has placed the 
Anglo-Saxon race in the forefront of the nations. 
They are carrying civilization to the ends of the 
earth. They are bringing liberty to the oppress- 
ed, elevating the down-trodden, and are giving 
to all these divers tongues and kindreds their 
traditions, customs, and laws. I reverently be- 
lieve that the Anglo-Saxon Church has been pre- 
served by God's Providence (if her children will 
accept this Mission) to heal the divisions of 
Christendom, and lead on in His work to be done 
in the eventide of the world. She holds the 
truths which underlie the possibility of reunion, 
the validity of all Christian baptism in the Name 
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
She ministers the two Sacraments of Christ as 
of perpetual obligation, and makes Faith in 
Jesus Christ, as contained in the Catholic Creed, 
a condition of Christian fellowship. The Anglo- 



18 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

Saxon Church does not perplex men with theor- 
ies and shibboleths which many a poor Ephraim- 
ite cannot speak — she believes in God the Father 
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in 
Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, 
three Persons and one God, but she does not 
w r eaken Faith in the Triune God by human 
speculations about the Trinity in Unity. She 
believes that the sacred Scriptures were written 
by inspiration of God, but she has no theory 
about inspiration. She holds up the Atonement 
of Christ as the only hope of a lost world ; but 
she has no philosophy about the Atonement. 
She teaches that it is through the Holy Ghost 
that men are united to Christ. She ministers 
the Sacraments appointed by Christ as His 
channels of grace ; but she has no theory to ex- 
plain the manner of Christ's presence to penitent 
believing souls. She does not explain what God 
has not explained, but celebrates these Divine 
mysteries, as they were held and celebrated for 
one thousand years after our Lord ascended into 
heaven, before there was any East or West 



ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL. 19 

arrayed against each other in the Church of God. 
Surely we may and ought to be first to hold up 
the olive branch of peace over strife, and say, 
" Sirs, ye are brethren." 

In so grave a matter as the restoration of or- 
ganic unity, we may not surrender anything 
which is of Divine authority, or accept terms of 
communion which are contrary to God's Word. 
We cannot recognize any usurpation of the rights 
and prerogatives of national Churches which 
have a common ancestry, lest we heal " the hurt 
of the daughter of my people slightly," and say 
" peace, where there is no peace;" but we do say 
that all which is temporary and of human choice 
or preference we will forego from our love to oxtr 
own kinsmen in Christ. 

The Church of the Reconciliation will be an 
historical and Catholic Church in its Ministry, 
its Faith, and its Sacraments. It will inherit 
the promises of its Divine Lord. It will preserve 
all which is Catholic and Divine. It will adopt 
and use all instrumentalities of any existing 
organization which will aid it in doing the 



20 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

Lord's work. It will put away all which is 
individual, narrow, and sectarian. It will con- 
cede to all who hold the Faith all the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made His children free. 

Missions. — In the presence of brethren who 
bear in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus, 
I hardly know how to clothe in words my 
thoughts as I speak of Missions. The provi- 
dence of God has broken down impenetrable 
barriers — the doors of hermit nations have been 
opened; commerce has bound men in common 
interests, and so prepared "a highway for our 
God"— Japan, India, China, Africa, Polynesia, 
amid the solitudes of the icy north, and in the 
lands of tropic suns, world-wide there are signs 
of the coming of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. 
The veil which has so long blinded the eyes of 
the ancient people, our Lord's kinsmen accord- 
ing to the flesh, is being taken away. We bless 
God for the good example of martyrs like Patte- 
son, Mackenzie, Parker, Hannington, and 
others, who have laid down their lives for the 
Lord Jesus. We rejoice that our branch of the 



ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL. 21 

Church has been counted worthy to add to 
the names of those who "came out of great 
tribulation, and have washed their robes, and 
made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 
u A great and effectual door is opened." There 
is no country on earth where we may not carry 
the Gospel. The wealth of the world is largely 
in Christian hands. The Church only needs faith 
to grasp the opportunity to do the work. 

In the presence of fields so white for the har- 
vest, we must ask, " Lord, what wilt Thou have 
me to do? " 

1. There must be unceasing, prevailing inter- 
cessory prayer for those whom we send out to 
heathen lands. The hearts of all Christian na- 
tions were turned with anxious solicitude to 
that brave servant of God and His country in 
Khartoum. Shall we feel less for the servants 
of Christ who have given up home and country 
to suffer and it may be to die for Him ? Some 
of us remember that when Missions were de- 
stroyed, when clouds were all around us, and 
the very ground drifting from under our feet, 



22 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

that we were made brave to work and wait for 
the salvation of God by the prayers which went 
up to God for us. When "prayers were made 
without ceasing of the Church unto God," the 
fast-closed doors of the prison were opened for 
the Apostle. It will be so again. 

2. There must be the entire consecration of 
all unto Christ. The wisdom of Paul and the 
eloquence of Apollos may plant, but " God alone 
giveth increase." If success comes, if "the rod 
of the priesthood bud and blossom and bear 
fruit," it must be "laid up in the ark of God." 
He will not give His glory to another. The 
work is Christ's. "We are ambassadors for 
Him." "I have chosen you and ordained you 
that ye should go and bring forth fruit." 

3. They who would win souls must have a 
ripe knowledge of the sacred Scriptures . ' ' They 
were written by inspiration of God . . . * . 
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly 
furnished unto all good works." Our orders 
may be unquestioned, our doctrine perfect in ev- 
ery line and feature, but we shall not reach the 



ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL. 23 

hearts of men unless we preach Christ out of an 
experimental knowledge of the truths of Divine 
Revelation. There is but one Book which can 
bring light to homes of sorrow, one light to 
scatter clouds and darkness, one message to 
lead wandering folk unto God. This blessed 
Book will be to every weary soldier and lonely 
missionary what it was to Livingstone dying 
alone in Africa, or to Captain Gardiner dead on 
the desolate shores of Patagonia, whose finger 
pointed to the words, " The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth from all sin." 

4. We must love all whom Christ loves. We 
may have the gift of teaching, we may under- 
stand all mysteries, we may have all knowledge, 
we may bestow all our goods to the poor, we 
may even give our bodies to be burned, but with- 
out that love which comes alone from Christ, 
we shall be " as sounding brass and a tinkling 
cymbal." With St. Paul we must say, " Where- 
insoever Christ is preached I do rejoice, and will 
rejoice." 



24 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

5. Above all gifts we need the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost. When this consecration comes 
there will be no cry of an empty treasury. We 
shall no longer be weary with the bleating of 
lost sheep, to whom we have to say, I have no 
means and no shepherd to send you. 

Christian Work. — We rejoice at every sign 
that Christians realize that wealth is a sacred 
trust, for which they shall give an account. We 
rejoice more that they are giving that personal 
service which is a law of His kingdom. Men and 
women of culture and gentle birth are going 
into the abodes of sickness and sorrow to com- 
fort stricken homes and lead sinful folk to the 
Saviour. Botherhoods, Sisterhoods, and dea- 
conesses are multiplying. Never was there 
greater need for their holy work. Many of our 
own baptized children have drifted away from 
all faith. To thousands God is a name, the 
Bible a tradition, faith an opinion, and heaven 
and hell fables. But that which gives us the 
deepest sadness and makes all Christian work 
more difficult is that so manv of those to whom 



ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL. 25 

the people look for example have given up the 
Bible, the Lord's Day, the house of God, and 
Christian faith. Alas ! they are telling these 
weary toilers whose lives are clouded by anxiety 
and sorrow that there is no hereafter. "They 
know not what they do." They are sowing to 
the wind and will reap the whirlwind. May 
God show them the danger before it is too late ! 
The loss of faith is the loss of everything ; with- 
out it morality becomes prudence or imprudence. 
When the tie which binds man to God is broken 
all other ties snap asunder. No nation has sur- 
vived the loss of its religion. We are appalled 
at the mad cry of anarchy which tramples all 
which we hold dear for time and eternity under 
its feet. We cannot look into its face without 
seeing the lineaments of that man of sin who 
"opposeth and exalteth himself above all that 
is called God and worshipped." Antichrist is he 
who usurps the place of Christ. "He is anti- 
christ who denieth the Father and the Son." 
Our hearts go out in pity for those whose me- 
chanical ideas of the universe mav be a revolt 



26 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

from a mechanical theology which has lost sight 
of the Fatherhood of God. We stand where two 
ways meet. We shall take care of the people or 
the people will take care of us. The people are 
the rulers ; the power of the future is in their 
hands. Limit their horizon to this life, let pen- 
ury, sickness, and sorrow change the man to a 
wolf, let him know no God and Father who 
hears his cry, no Saviour to help, no brother to 
bind up his wounds, let there be on the one side 
wealth and luxury and wanton waste, and on the 
other side poverty, misery, and despair, there will 
be, as there has been, a cry for blood. We wonder 
why men pass by the Church to found clubs and 
brotherhoods and orders. They will have them, 
and they ought to have them, until the Church 
is in its Divine love what its Founder designed 
it to be — the brotherhood in Christ of the chil- 
dren of our God and Father. What the world 
needs to-day is not alms, not hospitals, not 
homes of mercy alone. It needs the spirit and 
power of the love of Christ. It needs the voice, 
the ear, the hand, and the heart of Christ seen in 



ADDRESS AT LAMBETH CHAPEL. 27 

and working in His children. No powers of 
government, no prestige of social position, no 
prerogatives of Churchly authority can meet the 
issues of this hour ; we have waited already too 
long. Botherhood men will have, and it will be 
the brotherhood of the commune, or brother- 
hood in Christ as the children of our God and 
Father. Infidelity answers no questions, heals 
no wounds, fulfils no hopes. The Gospel will do, 
is doing, to-day what it has done through all the 
ages, leading men out of sin and darkness and 
despair to the liberty of sons of God. 

In a day of division and unrest there will be 
many questions which perplex earnest souls. 
Some will dwell on the subjective side of the 
faith, others will think most of its manifesta- 
tions in the life. These questions will affect or- 
ganization for Christian work, public worship, 
and find expression in the ritual of the Church. 
There is no room for differences if Christ be first, 
Christ be last, and Christ in everything. The 
ritual of the Church must be the expression of 
her life. It must symbolize her faith ; it must be 



28 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

subject to her authority. As the years go by 
worship will be more beautiful. The " garments 
of the king's daughter may be of wrought 
gold," and she " clothed in raiment of needle- 
work," but "she will have a name that she 
liveth and is dead," unless her "fine linen is the 
righteousness of the saints." Lastly, to none is 
this council so dear as to those whose lives are 
spent in the darkness of heathenism, or who 
have gone out to new lands to lay foundations 
for the work of the Church of God. In loneliness, 
with deferred hopes, neglected by brethren, your 
only refuge to cry as a child to God, it is a joy 
for you to feel the beating of a brother's heart, 
and hear the music of a brother's voice, and 
kneel with brothers at the dear old trysting- 
place, the table of our Lord. 

Let us consecrate all we have and are to Him, 
let us remember loved ones far away, let us 
gather all the work we have so long garnered in 
our hearts and lay it at His feet. We shall not 
have met in vain if out of the love learned of 
Him we give each to other, and to all fellow 



ADDRESS AT LAMBETH CHAPEL. 29 

laborers for Him, a brother's love, a brother's 
sympathy, and a brother's prayers. I do not 
know how to clothe in words the thronging mem- 
ories which cluster around us in this holy place. 
What searchings of heart, what cries to God, 
what communions with Christ, what consola- 
tions of the Holy Spirit have been witnessed in 
this sacred place. I cannot call over the long 
roll of saints, confessors, and martyrs, whose 
"names are written in the Lamb's Book of 
Life." Two names will be remembered to-day 
by us all. One, that gentle Archbishop Longley, 
who in the greatness of his love saw with a 
prophet's eye the Mission of the Church and 
planned these conferences that our hearts might 
beat as one in the battle of the last time. The 
other, the wisest of counsellors and the most 
loving of brethren, the great-hearted Arch- 
bishop Tait, whose dying legacy to his brethren 
was "love one another." They have finished 
their course and entered into rest. A little more 
work, a few more trials, and we, too, shall fin- 
ish our course. We are not two companies, the 



30 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

militant and triumphant are one. We are the 
advance and rear of one host travelling to the 
Canaan of God's rest. God grant that we, too, 
may so follow Christ that we may have an 
abundant entrance to His eternal kingdom." 



Organic IMty. 

BY THE RT. REV. M. N. GILBERT, D.D., 

COADJUTOR BISHOP OF MINNESOTA. 



©rganic llnits* 

By the Rt. Rev. M. N. Gilbert, D.D., 
Coadjutor Bishop of Minnesota. 

T COUNT it a happy and significant fact in the 
history of the Diocese of Minnesota, that its 
Church Club, still young in years, should inau- 
gurate its larger work by arranging a course of 
lectures on the timely and all important subject 
of Church Unity. Is it not prophetic of the part 
which the laymen of the Church are to take in 
the near future, in actively cooperating to secure 
that unity which is so necessary to the full and 
unfettered development and progress of the Gos- 
pel of the Son of God ? I trust that I have an 
adequate appreciation of the honor of opening 
this series of lectures, an honor which is height- 
ened by the company of the learned brethren 
who are to follow me. It is my province simply 
to draw the outlines, to state the situation as it 
appears to-day, and as far as it lies within my 
power to forecast the outlook. With this pre- 

33 



34 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

amble, and with the prayer that God's Holy 
Spirit may give us a right judgment in all things, 
I crave your attention for a brief space. 

Unobservant must that man be who fails to 
discern how large a place the subject of Church 
Unity occupies in the issues of the day. The 
religious newspaper is replete with it ; it echoes 
from the rostrum ; it is discussed in the clubs ; it 
is a familiar subject in the confidences of the 
family circle. It is no longer a coming question, 
it is here now. Here to be fairly considered ; here 
to be settled in God's own good time. Let us then, 
contribute our little grain of precipitant to-day. 
It will have no appreciable effect, but it is a 
component element in the process. 

Do not confound the question of Christian 
Unity with that of Church Unity. They are 
essentially different. A recent formula of articles 
presented as a platform for unity by the Con- 
gregational body in this country, is an indica- 
tion of a misapprehension of the real, specific, 
concrete end in view. Christian Unity has to do 
with the fundamentals of Christian belief, and 



ORGANIC UNITY. 35 



the principle of individual feeling and relation- 
ship. Church Unity is a question of organism. 
It deals with the adjustment of the institutional. 
One is the heart, the other the body ; dependent 
upon each other, linked together, yet not the 
same. 

We have Christian Unity, in fact. We have 
"one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism." A common 
aim is ours : to spread Christ's kingdom among 
men, to uphold the banner of the Cross, to live 
as brethren, to maintain a Christian civilization, 
to observe the Lord's Day, to make the power 
of the Gospel dominant in the hearts of men. 
These things we have. They are the precious 
things, they are the necessary things. Without 
them all attempts to realize Organic Unity w^ould 
be fruitless. The more potent these factors be- 
come in our lives, the simpler and speedier is the 
solution of the matter of outward unity. 

When men love as brethren, then they will 
begin to live as brethren ; then hand seeks hand, 
eye answers to eye, and lips frame the language 
of love. Theoretically, this fact has ever been 



36 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

held; now I believe it is being realized practic- 
ally. Until now the subject of Church organism 
was certain to produce contention. Christians 
were suspicious of one another. The good in 
other folds than their own was not recognized. 
The pulpit was often more vituperative than 
charitable. Too often men worked as if the true 
way to advance the reign of the Prince of Peace 
was to inaugurate war against Christian folk of 
other names. It is a sad story ; our cheeks blush 
with shame as we think upon it. 

It goes without the saying, that under such 
conditions, any hopeful consideration was not 
possible. The atmosphere is clearing, the vista 
is widening, the horizon has lifted. We can 
frankly and freely talk together now. What, 
then, is the outlook for Church Unity as viewed 
from the standpoint of the present ? I express 
my own views. 

In regard to Church Unity I am a prophet 
of optimism. To my eyes the outlook is replete 
with hope. In our day this hope will not be 
realized. It is too much to expect. The barriers 



ORGANIC UNITY. 37 

which have been hundreds of years in building 
cannot be broken down in one generation. We 
are now simply studying plans for their demoli- 
tion. God's Spirit is moving on the face of the 
waters. It is ours to work and wait. 

But before stating the hopeful outlook, let us 
frankly and fearlessly face the less cheering side 
of the picture. We cannot, even if we would, 
ignore it. To the common eye it is more discern- 
ible than the brighter side. 

First, the feeling among many that the divis- 
ions in Christendom are an advantage in the 
upbuilding of the kingdom. They tell us in 
familiar language, which has a sacrilegious ring 
in it, that as competition is the life of trade, so 
in the spreading of the Gospel competition gives 
animation and impetus to the effort. That in 
the sharp emulation of separated churches there 
is a providential arrangement, that God in this 
way appeals to a very natural and very laud- 
able characteristic in man, the principle of emu- 
lation and generous rivalry. This argument is 
propounded in all seriousness. It is not in my 



38 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

province to answer it, although its utter falla- 
ciousness and inconsistency are self-evident. The 
logical outcome of this spirit as witnessed on 
every side to-day, is its full condemnation. 

Second, the very general prejudice which 
still exists against the fair and generous consider- 
ation of the positions and claims of Churches 
other than our own. This is an inheritance of 
the ages of ill-will and strife. Prejudice is 
Satan's own weapon, and he is employing it for 
its full worth . 

Third, an unwillingness to yield any method 
of organism, or to adopt any practice which is 
markedly characteristic of another Christian 
body. This very prevalent condition arises from 
the feeling that such a sacrifice is a compromise 
of principle. The growing intelligence of men 
which recognizes a spirit of true and honest 
compromise as a noble and legitimate method 
in the accomplishment of desired results, will, I 
believe, gradually correct this condition. 

Fourth, the vast property holdings of the 
separated denominations. To many men, this 



ORGANIC UNITY. 39 

difficulty is seemingly insuperable, but to my 
mind it is one of the minor obstacles. The 
adaptations of means to an end will readily fol- 
low in the wake of a great controlling purpose. 

Fifth, the failure of all attempts thus far to 
arrange a basis of union. This argument is alto- 
gether superficial. Any other results at this 
stage would have been out of harmony with the 
acknowledged methods of history in dealing 
with the solution of ingrained evils. 

Sixth, That, just at the present time, there is 
a marked recession in the movement toward 
Organic Unity. 

The propositions made by our own Church, 
have been practically rejected by other Christian 
bodies. The action of our late General Conven- 
tion on certain propositions closely related to 
the question, have been construed by many with- 
out, as a virtual repudiation of our own declara- 
tions. The impatience on the part of some 
among ourselves, with the methods proposed to 
bring about a reunion, and a disinclination 



40 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

openly expressed, to take any further active 
steps in this direction. 

I am not disposed to ignore or minimize these 
obstacles. They exist, they must be faced. The 
way to overcome them has not been found. I 
fix my eyes rather on the summits which are 
glowing with the rays of the rising sun. Dis- 
cord is resolved by a larger emphasis upon the 
harmony. 

Now let us consider some of the grounds 
whereon I build my hopes for unity. 

On the one hand, there is a growing protest 
against mere absolutism. Absolutism was the 
primary cause of division. It crushed liberty of 
thought and action ; it appropriated to itself all 
power ; its weapons were interdicts and inquisi- 
tions. The world revolted; extremes produced 
extremes. This spirit in the Protestant world 
has not abated one jot or tittle. It is only 
larger, fuller and more reasonable. Protest is no 
longer confined to the Protestant world. Its 
voice is heard in the Roman Catholic as well. It 
is called progress, enlightenment. American 



ORGANIC UNITY. 41 

conditions are congenial to it. Liberalism has 
its leaders. They are men oi power. They will 
not rest until that venerable Church adapts it- 
self to the spirit of the age. Out of this condi- 
tion will grow a possibility of union. 

Then, again, on the other hand, the world is 
protesting against mere individualism. The 
liberation of men's consciences produced tyranny. 
It has led men into a country which, from a 
distance, appears most attractive, but where, in 
reality, " every man is a law unto himself." The 
logical outcome of individualism is unhampered 
division, the most objectionable form of sectism. 
Under the leadership of this spirit, Christendom 
is divided into almost two hundred bodies call- 
ing themselves orthodox. It needs no argument 
to convince the world of the utter folly of such a 
course. Men see it. They protest against it. 
They are striving to correct it. This very spirit 
of dissatisfaction with logical individualism, will 
force consideration of union. A common ground 
whereon reasonable authority and reasonable 



42 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

individual liberty may exist will be found. To 
my mind, this outcome is logical, inevitable. 

Again, this is an eminently utilitarian age. 
Men are nothing if not practical. Mere senti- 
ment, no matter how venerable or fascinating, 
must yield to the demands of utility. How does 
this bear on the question of Church Unity ? Do 
3^ou not see? Our present divisions are a sad 
dissipation of energy, both of men and money. 
It is no uncommon thing to find a village of one 
thousand inhabitants with a dozen separate 
religious organizations therein. The congrega- 
tions are small, the church edifices unattractive 
and unimposing, the minister poorly supported, 
an intense rivalry between these different organ- 
izations, competition stimulating sensationalism 
in the pulpit and practical bribery in the Sunday 
School; a condition of spiritual life which too 
often is manifested in mere proselytism. These 
evils are seen and known. Practical men are 
asking why they should continue. Why scatter 
all this abounding energy and abundant means, 
when concentration of effort would produce 



ORGANIC UNITY. 43 



larger and more beneficial results ? Impatience 
with this unbusiness-like and harmful state of 
things will help to push churches to a considera- 
tion of union. 

Again, the world is beginning to understand 
that mere opinions and theories are not of neces- 
sity fundamentals of the faith. Strange as it 
may seem, this is a recent discovery . From 
Reformation times Churches have considered a 
congerie of definitions a necessity to corporate 
existence. Nay, more than this, have asserted 
that the acceptance of them was necessary to 
eternal salvation. As a result, men have been 
in bondage in one age to a certain interpreta- 
tion of doctrines which prevailed in an ante- 
cedent age. Confessions of faith and articles of 
belief may be valuable adjuncts to a proper pre- 
sentation of the truth enshrined in the Church, 
but they are not that truth itself, and can never 
be imposed upon men's hearts and intellects as 
a finality. When this principle was discovered, 
Christian folk began to lift up their eyes and 
discern their oneness in Christ. These hedges in 



44 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

the Lord's vineyard were found to be of men's 
planting. The everlasting verities were com- 
mon to all, and were the only essential things. 

This important discovery at once brings out 
the hope that these hedges can in some way be 
removed, and tends to encourage the discussion 
of plans of union. In the words of the late Dr. 
Dollinger: "We are all at bottom members of 
the Universal Church. In this great Garden of 
the Lord, let us shake hands over these confes- 
sional hedges, and let us break them down so as 
to be able to embrace one another altogether. 
These hedges are the doctrinal divisions about 
which either we or you are in error. If you are 
in the wrong, we do not hold you morally cul- 
pable, for your education, surroundings, knowl- 
edge and training make your adhering to these 
doctrines excusable and even right. Let us 
examine, compare and investigate the matter 
together, and we shall discover the precious 
pearls of religious peace and Church Unity, and 
then let us join hands in cultivating and cleansing 
the Garden of the Lord, which is overgrown 
with weeds." 



ORGANIC UNITY. 45 

Again, the historic method of treatment is 
being recognized and adopted. What do I mean 
by the historic method as applied to the ecclesias- 
tical questions ? Simply the use of that method 
in Church life and development which rests upon 
" antiquity, universality and consent." This 
gives the whole Christian world at once a fair 
field, for all Christian bodies spring out of a 
common seed plat of history. When Churches 
get to that position from which they can fairly, 
honestly and impartially study the question of 
what most nearly in the way of Church organ- 
ism approximates to the ' ' ancient, the universal 
and the common to all," that moment the whole 
matter of the Church upon which all can unite 
is in a hopeful condition of solution. We are, I 
confidently believe, approaching that condition. 

The term, " Historic Continuity," so often 
used, is no longer an unmeaning, vague expres- 
sion, but the epitomizing of a great fact,— a fact 
upon which rests the ultimate, legitimate author- 
ity of Creed, Sacrament and Orders. 

Again, nothing is more hopefully prophetic of 



46 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

results than an active agitation of a subject. 
The more deeply imbedded the evils, the longer 
must be the precedent discussion of them. This 
fact is so marked in all the history of the past 
that he who runs may read it. The whole crea- 
tion groaned and travailed in the throes of the 
new birth of the human race in Jesus Christ, ere 
He came in the fulness of time to establish His 
Kingdom. 

Three centuries and more of agitation in 
which truths and half-truths, heresies and half- 
heresies jostled themselves in strange and mysti- 
fying confusion were needed, ere the central 
truths of Christianity crystallized themselves 
once for all in the Nicene Formula. 

Years followed years, marked by the disquisi- 
tions and discussions of the schoolmen, by the 
vain attempts at Basle and Constance, by the 
thtmderings of Luther and the piteous cries of 
brave men everywhere seeking for light, ere the 
mighty epoch of the Protestant Reformation 
was ushered in. At the very moment when the 
solution of the problem seemed most hopeless, 



ORGANIC UNITY. 47 

then suddenly the difficulties disappeared, the 
clouds lifted, the way was plain. 

This is the philosophy of history : apply it to 
the great problem of Church Unity. We are just 
entering upon the era of discussion. Until now 
the world had accepted in a dull, heavy, helpless 
way the evils of division. Now, it has become 
aroused. It is, as I said at the outset, the ques- 
tion of the day. It will grow in importance. 
Sometimes a lull will come, silence will reign, 
men will despair ; then will dawn another awak- 
ening, and an advance will have been made, the 
end will be nearer. This process will go on for 
years. It is God's way. "A thousand years in 
His sight are but as one day." The sharper the 
contest, the speedier the solution. I rejoice in 
the combat. Its noise is the prelude of peace. 
Agitate, agitate, agitate! exclaimed one of the 
brave leaders of slavery abolition. So now, 
agitate! in press and pulpit, everywhere and 
always, and the very thunder of the elements is 
prophetic of a refreshed earth and clear sky. 

Again the gradual, yet evident, return to the 



48 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

use of a liturgical worship. This in itself is no 
small contribution to the cause of Church Unity. 
Give people a common language, and you en- 
courage the upgrowth of ideas common to all. 
The use of a universal Liturgy, varient perhaps, 
in its arrangement, but virtually identical 
throughout, will surely bring about unity in 
methods and organism. The prejudice against 
the use of a precomposed service is gradually 
disappearing. The noble inheritance of the 
Christian Church in the rich devotional treas- 
ures of the whole past is being recognized and 
appreciated. The extemporized and impromptu 
ebullitions of a fervid piety have brought with 
them their own cure. Dignity and reverence in 
the worship of Almighty God are the essential 
corollaries of an imposing and uplifting service. 
The Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal 
Church, that unequalled treasure of devotion 
which has alike received the admiring criticism 
of friends within and without that Church, 
although perhaps not the exact formula of wor- 
ship for the future united Church of Christen- 



ORGANIC UNITY. 49 



dom, will, doubtless, be the norm and model of 
such a service. 

What a glorious day will be ushered in, when 
from adoring worshippers everywhere under- 
neath the bending sky shall ascend heavenward, 
like the voice of many waters, the harmonious 
diapason of lips and hearts speaking to God in 
the oneness of a common language of worship! 
How will it draw myriad hearts closer together, 
and cause them to realize the fellowship of the 
whole household of Faith! 

Let us now recapitulate the reasons advanced 
for my hopeful outlook into the future, as I have 
briefly placed them before you : 

1. Dissatisfaction with absolutism. 

2. Dissatisfaction with individualism. 

3. The practical spirit of the age demanding 

conservation and concretion of energy. 

4. The growing recognition of the truth that 

mere opinions and theories, confessions 
and articles are not the essentials of Faith 
and salvation. 



50 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

5. The recognition of the historic method in 

the treatment of Church Union. 

6. The constant and ever growing agitation 

of the question. 

7. The increase in the use of liturgical meth- 

ods in public worship. 

Other hopeful indications exist, but the limits 
of my time forbid my dwelling upon them, or 
even indicating them. 

What is being done ? 

While in all Churches discussions have pre- 
vailed, yet only one, thus far has formulated and 
presented an authorized basis of organic unity. 
I refer to the declaration of the Anglican Church, 
known as the Chicago-Lambeth Articles. That 
the first overtures should come from this vener- 
able and historic Church is eminently fitting. 
She occupies that strong conservative middle 
place in Christendom which gives her a vantage 
ground possessed by no other. Her voice is 
listened to with interest and respect, even if a 
deaf ear is turned to her appeals. The first 
three propositions have met with a general and 



ORGANIC UNITY. 51 



cordial reception. It is something, at any rate, 
that a certain fraction of a common standpoint 
has been found. 

The fourth proposition, for obvious reasons, 
I quote : 

"The historic episcopate, locally adapted in 
the methods of its administration to the vary- 
ing needs of the nations and peoples called of 
God into the unity of His Church." 

Around this principle the contest centres. It 
is the broadest possible statement of the dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of those Churches 
which hold to the necessity of Episcopal author- 
ity. The proposition could not be stated in any 
more liberal or concrete way without emptying 
it of its meaning. The question at issue turns 
on the necessity of the historic episcopate for 
the transferrence of Holy Orders. Its accept- 
ance means the virtual repudiation of all self- 
constituted orders. The Anglican Church, with- 
out defining the method of operation, or requir- 
ing the adoption of any one settled theory re- 
garding its origin or administration, neverthe- 



52 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

less insists that that ministry is at least incom- 
plete which does not receive its authority 
through the episcopate. The proposition is 
founded upon the principle that what is received 
can be transmitted, and that no branch of the 
Catholic Church in any one age or land has the 
right to change that law of historic continuity. 
I shall hardly venture to defend in this paper, 
this crucial question; I leave this for another. 
From my point of view, it is entirely reasonable 
and necessary. Its acceptance would seem to 
carry with it the correction of so many of the 
evils which now spring from a self-constituted 
ministry. I am frank to say that any other 
basis of union less ancient or less lofty in its 
claims, or less universal in its prevalence, would 
not meet the situation. I do feel bound to say 
that the true meaning of the proposition has 
almost universally been misconstrued. It does 
not propose to take away anything from the 
ministry of other Christian bodies, it does not 
propose to absorb them into the Episcopal 
Church, but on the other hand, it does offer to 



ORGANIC UNITY. 53 



add something to them. The Anglican Church 
holds out her hand filled with this heritage of 
the past and offers to bestow it upon others who 
have lost it or never possessed it. This is the 
largest and freest way of defining the proposi- 
tion, but that is just what it means. The 
adjustment of the parts in one harmonious 
whole, after the governing wheel has been put 
in place can be left to the wisdom of those 
whose hearts and minds, with God's help, are 
given to its solution. 

Whether this basis of unity will be accepted 
or not, surely you will agree with me that it has 
been an honest and brave attempt on the part 
of one of the great bodies of Christians to bring 
separated brethren together in the fellowship 
and protection of a common household. It is 
part of the process of historical adjustment, and 
will open the door for further advance. 

Already Christian leagues have been formed, 
representing the leading minds of three great 
Churches, which propose to work on this four- 
fold basis of union. I hail with joy all such 



54 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

attempts to heal division. Men may ridicule 
them, and ask impatiently for immediate results, 
but none of these things will overthrow the 
movement. It is the inward and onward flow 
of the tide of a great sea, which no scornful, 
Canutish spirit can wave back or stay. "God 
sitteth above the water floods, be the people 
never so impatient." 

So out into the future my eyes gaze hopefully, 
restfully. Flashes of light can be seen along the 
whole horizon. Even that Church which has 
seemed to isolate herself from this burning ques- 
tion of unity, is showing that she is not un- 
moved by the voice of the age, for does she not, 
through her august head, bid all people to pray 
for union? What shall be the form of that 
future great Church, I cannot tell ; I do not care 
to know. I believe, in the words of another, 
that * ' ' the Church of the Reconciliation will be 
an historic and Catholic Church. It will be a 
unity within itself, its ministry, its faith, its sac- 
raments, its work. It will inherit the divine 

* Bishop Whipple. 



ORGANIC UNITY. 55 



promises of its Lord and Founder. It will pre- 
serve for Christianity all that is primitive, 
Catholic and divine. It will adopt and use all 
instrumentalities that may be found in any 
existing Christian organization, if they can aid 
it in doing the Lord's work. It will put away 
all that is individual and sectarian. In a word, 
the test of Christian fellowship in that Church, 
will be that faith which rests upon antiquity, 
universality and consent, which has been held 
always, which has been held everywhere, and 
which has been held by all, and it will concede 
to every member of that Church, all that freedom 
of opinion which is part of the liberty where- 
with Christ has made us free. Some of us may 
have thought that the New Jerusalem, which is 
to descend out of heaven as a bride adorned for 
her husband, would simply represent our own 
views. We shall be cured of that and many 
other selfish dreams. Before that day shall dawn 
we shall concede, each to the other, all that a 
Christian may concede and yet hold the Catholic 
faith, pure and undenled." 



56 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

" The Spirit of God is moving on the face of the waters." 

As in that early ante-natal morn of the world, 
mid the chaos of form and force, mid the up- 
heavals and catyclisms of nature's birth throes, 
there came forth a world so perfect in its organic 
symmetry and substance that God pronounced 
it good, so now, in the realm of Church and 
Creed, with its disjected members and its chaos 
of uncorrelated forces, the Spirit of God moves 
with the same supernal power, with the same 
sure prophecy of a Church emerging full-orbed, 
and standing like the mystic city above, "four 
square." 

In that ideal Church which is sometime to be 
made real, we shall find that oneness for which 
the Saviour prayed, that oneness which is like 
to that above. 

"Let all that now unites us 

More sweet and lasting prove, 
A closer bond of union 

In that blest land of love. 
Let war be learned no longer, 

Let strife and tumult cease ; 
All earth His blessed kingdom, 

The Lord and Prince of Peace. 



ORGANIC UNITY. 57 



' long-expected dawning, 

Come with thy cheering ray! 
When shall the morning brighten, 

The shadows flee away ? 
O sweet anticipation, 

It cheers the watchers on 
To pray and hope and labor 

Till the dark night be gone." 



II. 

The Holy Scriptures. 

BY THE REV. HARRY P. ^NICHOLS, 

RECTOR OF ST. MARK'S CHURCH, 
MINNEAPOLIS. 



XTbe 1bol£ Scriptures* 

By the Rev. Harry P. Nichols, 
Rector of St. Mark's Church, Minneapolis. 

"(A). The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, as 'containing all things necessary to salvation,' 
and as being the rule and ultimate standard of Faith." — 
Lambeth Quadrilateral. 

THE Chicago-Lambeth propositions are over- 
tures of Church Unity. A form of language 
is to be interpreted with reference to its purpose. 
Though the matter it handles have many sides, 
though the terms in which it is expressed admit 
of varying interpretation, yet in determining its 
living value, of primary concern is the aim of its 
utterance. Only those aspects of the subject- 
matter, only that interpretation of its phraseol- 
ogy, are to be considered which bear upon the 
reason of its being. To the critic belongs the 
right to fault articles of peace, that the condi- 
tions set forth are trivial and their expression 

61 



62 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

ambiguous ; but the statesman pushes the con- 
ditions to the full realization of their capacity, 
ascertaining their meaning in the light of the 
conceded intention. We are here this evening as 
ecclesiastical statesmen. In this course of lec- 
tures we do not as lawyers summon witnesses, 
from our own or other ranks favorable or hos- 
tile to the merits of the overtures ; we set them 
forth, in the character of ambassadors, as prof- 
fers of peace. 

A noble proposition has been put forth by the 
Anglican Communion as a basis of Church 
Unity. In the Chicago-Lambeth protocol four 
essentials are affirmed as pre-requisites for resto- 
ration of unity in the Christian Church. It may 
be claimed that there are other essentials which 
have been omitted. It may be thought that the 
preservation of even these essentials is not suffic- 
iently guaranteed by the language of the propo- 
sitions. Neither of these positions is an open 
question before us in these lectures. We stand 
as advocates to plead the positive merit of con- 
ditions already put forth by an authority to 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 63 

which at least we who speak owe unqualified 
allegiance. Here are essentials. Why are they 
essential? How does their presentation for- 
ward the cause ? Charity does not demand that 
a truth be pushed into a corner, to determine 
just where it is inconsistent, in what exact meas- 
ure it fails of completeness, ere we concede to it 
sincerity and value. "I must hold that a full 
divine scheme has been set forth, in exact form, 
with no margin of the questionable or the per- 
missible," is not the Church's language when she 
steps forth with the olive branch in hand. 

As the first essential to the Unity of the 
Church are put forward the Holy Scriptures. 
We are here this evening to inquire: first, why 
the Holy Scriptures as a whole are such an es- 
sential, and second, what aspects of the Holy 
Scriptures constitute their unifying element. We 
are to read the Holy Scriptures in the light of 
the blessing, the unique and invaluable blessing, 
they bestow upon our common Christianity in 
this Nineteenth Century and in this Western 
world. With the dividing, sect-forming use of 



64 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

Holy Scripture all through the Church's history 
we have no concern save to crowd it out by bet- 
ter thought thereon. This, I take it, is our atti- 
tude on the whole quadrilateral of propositions 
for the Peace of the Church. They ask with 
one common voice, what can we, so-called essen- 
tials, contribute in ourselves and in our possible 
presentation, toward the restoration of lost 
unity in the Church of the Christian's one Lord 
and Master — an aim for which saints and angels 
pray and labor with strong crying and tears. 

The Holy Scriptures the First Essential. 

This both with reference to Protestant Christ- 
ianity, for whom the Bible is the one appeal, 
and to the Christianity of the ancient Greek and 
Roman communions, under whose ecclesiastical 
tradition the primary position of the Bible has 
seemed somewhat buried. Church Unity means 
a whole united Christendom. Overtures of peace 
in the Christian Church embrace all its members. 
The movement may be more hopeful of a hear- 
ing in some quarters than in others, but as a 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 65 

proposition in the thought of the ambassadors 
its terms must include all the parties. 

The Holy Scriptures contain all things neces- 
sary to salvation. There may be much in Scrip- 
ture additional to the things necessary to salva- 
tion, we suggest to the ultra-Protestant worship 
of the letter. There may be much outside the 
Scriptures, within Church tradition, valuable but 
not necessary, we suggest to the worshipper of 
the traditional. But for man's salvation, re- 
deemed from sin and death, as that to which the 
Christian faith must be referred as its rule and ulti- 
mate standard the Holy Scriptures stand sol- 
itary — " for they may be proved by most certain 
warrant of Holy Scripture." The Bible is not 
itself salvation ; faith is not reposed in a book ; 
it is that to which man looks to learn the way 
of salvation and to determine the faith. 

This opening proposition affirms one inval- 
uable truth, and leaves unaffirmed, for the cher- 
ishing and enjoyment of all types of feeling and 
thought within the Christian Church, many 
valuable truths beside. The one truth — we have 



66 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

in Christianity a book, made up of many writ- 
ings, by many writers, in many styles, spread 
over many ages, which book, as a whole, is the 
revealed truth of God on God's nature and man's 
duty. As such it has stood the test of man's 
criticism and man's living, shining on every age 
with deeper and richer light as the very word of 
God. To this composite Book the Christian 
turns as bearing all necessary witness to the 
way of salvation ; by this composite Book he 
tests all essential religious truth whether it be 
of God or whether it be of man. 

Christianity is the Religion of a Book — that 
thought stands on the forefront of our proposi- 
tions of peace. We come, to Christian folk, to 
the world of men, with a writing in our hand, to 
which, gladly making every allowance for copy- 
ists, translators, interpreters, for differences in 
style of writing and moral progress of a writer's 
time, we appeal as the one final witness of 
Christian truth and Christian duty. This does 
not underestimate the truth of a position dear 
to many Church people that the Church was 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 67 

before the Bible, nor the equally cherished posi- 
tion of an opposite school of thought that the 
inward witness of a life blessed by the Bible is 
its unanswerable evidence. "A word of mouth 
Gospel sufficed so long as men who had had 
'perfect understanding of all things from the 
very first ' were still alive to tell their story ; but 
with the passing away of that generation there 
came in the need of an authenticated record, a 
trustworthy chronicle, a written recital of facts" 
(Peace of the Church, p. 63). The spirit of the 
Bible survives in the Bible itself. 

Other religions are religions of a book as well. 
This generation cannot refuse to submit the 
Christian Bible to a comparison with other 
Bibles. In the comparison the Holy Scriptures 
shine the brighter. "The worship of Jehovah 
was never tainted as the other great religions of 
antiquity were tainted. It lived in a serener 
region and breathed a purer air." " The Chris- 
tian Evidence Societies," says Dr. Huntington in 
his Bohlen lectures, " could do the public no bet- 
ter service than to print for purposes of contrast 



68 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 



an edition, say, of the Gospel of St. John inter- 
leaved with the very best sentences it is possible 
to gather from the sacred literatures of the 
East. The whole controversy would in that 
case, be condensed into a simple, Look here upon 
this picture, and upon this" (Peace of the 
Church, p. 73) . And this picture finds its centre, 
the explanation of all its human figures and their 
grouping, in the divine Figure of Him whose 
name Christians delight to bear. Christianity 
is indeed the religion of a book, but its mark, 
distinguishing it from all other religions — ethical 
systems, philosophical schemes, strings of pre- 
cepts, codes of laws — is that it is personal disci, 
pleship to a Personal Lord whom that Book 
cradles in the Old Testament, and crowns in the 
New. 

Why is Christianity the religion of a book ? 
This is only another -way of asserting that 
Christianity is an historical religion. This we 
affirm in setting forth the Book of the Holy 
Scriptures as a proposition of peace, as well as 
in proclaiming a Historic Episcopate. Historic 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 69 

is the adjective of the whole overture; a Historic 
Book, Historic Creeds, Historic Sacraments, an 
Historic Ministry ; the term is disparaged as an 
unspiritual requirement, is even repugnant to 
many within our Church as well as to those 
without; the feeling results from ignoring the 
very idea of an external institution as that 
which enrolls the individual membership into an 
historic body, the one ever living Church of the 
Lord Himself. Would we be free from these tram- 
mels of the past, would we be saved from labor- 
ious examination of old records, from questions 
of true text, of authenticity of writings ? Would 
we throw over the weight of these documents, 
throw over the millstone of a Church of fallible 
men bringing our religion into contempt, and 
stand on the naked simplicity of God, and truth, 
and righteousness blazoning its summons upon 
our solitary and responsive consciousness ? Not 
for one moment, not the most rabid individual- 
ist of us all, of us lovers of home, of native land, 
lovers of our unworthy but splendid fellow. 
Christianity is the religion of a Book, because 



70 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

the Scriptures are the present visible witness, to 
our common Christianity, of its birthright. 
God has given four witnesses of Himself; His 
dear Son, His Spirit, His Church, His written 
word. The inspiration of all of these must be to- 
day submitted to the witness of Scripture ; not 
for the Apostle, since he had the Lord Himself; 
not for the individual Christian, since he has the 
witnessing spirit within — even he may confuse 
the utterence of the Spirit with his own lower 
predilections ; not for the loyal Churchman, 
since he listens to the Church's voice, yet not 
without interpreting its meaning to his own 
conscience. But for the Living Church of to- 
day, for a divided Christendom, the Holy Script- 
ures are the final authority on the way of life, 
on the truth of God. That way and truth was 
first a preached word; it is preached still, the 
living voice drives it home. But the oral must 
be tested by the written. As the Apostles passed 
away men asked: "What is the abiding wit- 
ness of Jesus' work and truth ? We have in the 
Old Testament a word of God we all acknowl- 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 71 

edge. Is there aught in the new dispensation 
we can place side by side with these sacred 
Scriptures?" So the books of the New Testa- 
ment took their place as God's abiding witness 
to Christ. The Church determined the New as the 
Old Scriptures, not suddenly, not easily, but by 
that sifting process out of which has come all 
splendid and permanent possessions for human- 
ity. The Church determining the Holy Script- 
ures is the undivided Church, is the earlier 
Church, is the Church that even antedates the 
formulated Creeds, the Church to which all 
Christendom goes back with unfaltering loyalty. 

As the first overture of peace to every form 
of Christianity we put unhesitatingly the Holy 
Scriptures of the Apostolic Church, "as contain- 
ing all things necessary to salvation, and as be- 
ing the rule and ultimate standard of faith." 

We come now to what we may term, by con- 
trast w r ith the historic, the living feature of the 
overture. In what aspect does the Holy Script- 
ures commend itself as the first basis of unity 
for a divided Christianity ? What presentation 



72 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

of the Bible to the living Christianity of this 
age acts as a unifier ? 

One word gathers that living aspect into it- 
self: The Interpretation of Holy Scripture. 

The characteristics of the Bible as the Word 
of God which spring first to your thought do 
not come within our range at this time, as being 
neither characteristics on which, as we are grow- 
ing to feel, there are differences of any radical 
moment, among Christian Churches, differences, 
I mean, that concern the Bible as the true Word 
of God ; nor characteristics serving as a basis 
to harmonize their differences. 

You think of Inspiration. Some prefer the 
word Revelation the Inspiration of the Script- 
ures is not a thing for Christians to wrangle 
over. As a technical term to conjure by, in the 
spirit of partisan condemnation of other views 
than our own, denouncing as traitors to the 
Christian Faith those who do not limit the 
breathings of the spirit by the sounds caught of 
our ears, "Inspiration" is neither a mark of 
Holy Scripture nor a message from on high to a 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 73 

divided Church. All Christians agree that the 
Bible is the inspired Word, the revealed truth of 
God. Our Church proclaims that general propo- 
sition as alone essential. We impose no theory of 
inspiration as we impose none of the Atonement, 
of the union of the Divine and human in Christ, of 
God's foreknowledge and man's freedom, of the 
power of prayer. It belongs to a divided Christ- 
ianity to impose a theory about eternal truths. 
We do not even ask : Is there inspiration else- 
where, outside the Bible, does the inspiration 
of the Bible itself extend to its entire contents ; 
we require and we challenge no answer to such 
questions. 

You think of the Canon of Scripture as a 
matter of moment. Yet strange as it may sound, 
what constitutes the Bible is neither a point of 
difference or of agreement among Christian 
Churches. The study of the formation of the 
Canon, as of the Nicene Creed, of the institu- 
tions and beliefs in general of an undivided 
Christianity, reveals a painstaking fidelity. Su- 
perficial reading of Church History is with a 



74 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

sneer: deeper reading begets confidence and 
thankfulness. That some books of the Bible 
were long in doubt and possibly are still open 
to question, does not invalidate the sacrednessof 
the whole, rather confirms the accuracy and 
value of conclusions so laboriously reached. 

These necessary determinations have led to a 
more careful and intelligent study of Holy 
Scripture. This is criticism. Ignorance and im- 
maturity are afraid of criticism. The fathers 
who determined the canon were fearless critics. 
So-called Higher Criticism, though the phrase is 
hardly a felicitous one, is not directly in the path 
of our discussion of the Holy Scriptures as a 
unifier. Let the higher critics tell Christian peo- 
ple all the scholarly truth they can; we will 
thank them for it. Ignorance is never a blessing. 
Their intellect can help us as our spiritual dis- 
cernment can help them. Criticism, in deter- 
mining the text, the date, the authorship, the 
source and method of composition of the Books 
of the Bible, is an intellectual process. Its re- 
sults, however radical in modifying cherished 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 75 

views, do not infringe on the integrity of the 
Book as the divinely given record of God's way 
and will. Those results are still indeterminate. 
Should their demonstration of the construction 
and contents of the Bible be much more destruc- 
tive of existing conceptions than appears at all 
likely, either from results already attained or 
from the line of reasoning approved by critics 
themselves, we are confident that the character- 
istics of the Scriptures which endear them to the 
faith and life of our common Christianity will 
still remain invulnerable. 

Christians do not need to agree even within 
their own ranks on secondary details. We can 
all agree on essential characteristics. What is 
the essential characteristic of Holy Scripture ? 
The answer to that question is the one keynote 
of the proposition as an overture of peace. 

Interpretation answers. Interpretation is 
making the Bible live. Interpretation is the 
translation of Truth into living Language, 
Thought, Action. A divided Christianity is to 
be united on living principles. We cannot gal- 



76 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

vanize Church Unity, nor reason it into line by 
logic, nor summon it by authority, nor scare it 
into being by denunciation. The Living God ; a 
Present Christ; a Holy Spirit working to-day; a 
ministry that summons and guides to righteous- 
ness; Sacraments that feed the soul's hunger; 
Creeds which formulate the soul's needs ; a Bible 
that speaks to the men of to-day in a language 
they understand, of a faith and a salvation 
whereby they may fill their life in this tremen- 
dous time with meaning and beauty and hope 
from on high — these rally Christian discipleship 
to a common cause. The Word of God inter- 
preted to the soul's life of this century, and this 
civilization, is the rallying ground of a living 
Christianity of every name. 

Some interpretation of the Bible we all share. 
The Bible is a translated book in its language, 
from Hebrew, Greek, Latin, early English. The 
Bible is a composite book of many styles of liter- 
ature. We forget the translating, deeming our 
"King James" or our "Revised" to be the inspired 
word. We ignore or deny the varying literature, 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 77 

treating as one thing history, law, poem, proph- 
ecy, Gospel, letter. On this simplest interpreting 
ground a new temper is receiving a welcome 
among Christian people. Christians of every 
name are coming together to study the Bible in 
an absolutely new way. The light that is being 
let in with a flood is the light of reality. Men 
are thronging to be told, after the manner of a 
master of his art, that the book of Job is a sacred 
drama, that Deuteronomy is a series of three 
orations by Moses the man of God, interleaved 
with historical notes by the sacred compiler. 
What would have been profane to our ears less 
than a generation ago now makes the Bible live. 
And this is but one application of the method of 
interpretation. Reading it so, divided Christian- 
ity is asking with one voice, "What is the one 
essential infallible feature ? What speaks to every 
Church, age, race ? In what does our humanity 
hear the same voice from above, whether it be 
Paul to Athens, or John to Ephesus, or Moses to 
Israel ? Sifting out the human element, whether 
it be a maximum as in Esther, or a minimum as 



78 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

in John's Gospel, what divine element remains 
for us all ? ' ' 

Mountain peaks there are, snow capped, un- 
sullied, rising out of underbrush, of fogs, unveiled 
toward the blue heavens. We must climb high 
enough to see them. We ask for the mountain 
peaks of revelation. Like all greatest things 
they are the possession of no one country, of no 
one Creed. 

The essential blessedness of the Holy Script- 
ures, marking with one divine mark history, 
prophecy, Psalm, Gospel, Epistle — differ as they 
do as literature, though none of them are weak 
literature — is the uniform reference of thought 
and action to divine standards; is a religious 
purpose, a growing religious purpose from Gen- 
esis to Isaiah, from Isaiah to St. John the 
Divine ; is a consciousness of God, a consciousness 
of revealing God. Herein Christian scholarship 
is now finding the most satisfactory proof of 
Inspiration. On the mind of the writers rested, 
with more or less distinctness, the sense of writ- 
ing in God's name. Then the reader only asks, 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 79 

Can he be trusted ? Herein, herein alone, is the 
marvellous unity of the Bible; writers, ages 
apart, separated by impassable chasms in civili- 
zation, style, taste, strength, all witnesses for 
God. Paul sits to write a plain letter on duty 
to a convert in Asia Minor ; behold ! he is under 
the guidance of the one Mind, in whose presence 
David, the race's hero, penned his Psalms. 

This first overture of unity to the heart of 
Christianity- summons Christian men every- 
where to be first of all Christians, children of 
God, disciples of Christ, workers together for 
righteousness. To righteousness, to God, to 
Christ, the Bible bears witness, agrees in all its 
parts to bear witness. 

Find God in the Bible. That is what the 
Bible is for, or it is not God's Word. Find 
Christ. It is from the Holy Scriptures we know 
of the work and words of Jesus Christ. It has 
been wisely said, even if we held not the Inspira- 
tion of the Bible, the credibility of the Scripture 
is invaluable. The witness of the prophets to 
themselves and to the Christ that was coming 



80 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

the witness of the plain Evangelists, and of that 
marvellous zealot Paul, and of that pains- 
taking scholar Luke, to the Christ that had 
come, compels us to ask, Who is this Christ, 
what does He claim ? On even the lowest esti- 
mate of Holy Scripture we have a foundation 
for a common and a splendid Christianity. 

What God is, seen afar by the prophets, seen 
in Himself in Christ, a thing which revelation 
alone could teach, is the essential in Holy Scrip- 
ture. And not anything else is essential, science, 
history, language, geography, criticism; to as- 
certain these, God has given us powers of our 
own. Search not the Bible for these things! 
The Bible is a religious monograph, and is noth- 
ing else worth the race's reverent cherishing. 
God in Christ is somewhere there, in Ruth, in Le- 
viticus, in Esther, in Jonah, in the Apocalypse. 
That is the reason they are part of Holy Script- 
ure. Wise men, themselves semi-inspired, in- 
cluded these books after ages of sifting. Their 
critical powers were poor. Their deductions 
were often fanciful. But thev found in the Bible 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 81 

what they had an instinct to hear, a voice from 
God, a promise of Christ, a preparing His way, 
a temper to meet Him, a revelation of the need 
that He come ; and there we too must find Him. 

This waiving of non-essentials in Holy Script- 
ure, as anywhere else, is a trying process. We 
are wedded to secondary shibboleths, the essence 
of all sectarianism, within and without the 
Church ; we are striving to rid ourselves of the 
secondary. We deem the essentials of truth to 
be wrapped up in our interpretation of truth ; 
that men be converted my way ; that the Indian 
accept New England Puritanism, that Japanese 
Christianity be Protestant Episcopalianism ; 
Church unity comes as we free ourselves from 
such limitation of God's universal truth. 

Traditional views of Holy Scripture are no 
longer possible. Every one has conceded some- 
thing, though with a sigh. Unconsciously, as 
well as consciously, none of us prove as hard as 
our theories, be we advocates of the letter of 
the rubric, or of no Christian discipleship with- 
out immersion. "All or nothing" is a hope- 



82 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

less and an abandoned position, as well in the 
Holy Scriptures as in all overtures of Church 
unity. All that is essential together, everything 
unessential apart. We do not ask for a human all 
at the price of a divine nothing. We eliminate 
as we can the human, and we have left the 
divine, less in bulk, simpler in expression, but 
outweighing and outmeasuring the human as 
the little pool shut into my cistern unto the 
showers of rain from heaven. 

What form these divine essentials in Holy 
Scripture take for man, the Church in the Creeds 
helps determine. So one overture supplements 
another. The Fatherhood of God, the divine 
mission and work of Jesus Christ, the forgive- 
ness of sins, these and like truths are what the 
Scriptures stand for. Of the Science of nature 
even of theology as a science, the Creeds affirm 
nothing, the Bible is not given to proclaim. 

A man looking to find these saving truths 
finds them; Origen with his allegories, Sweden- 
borg with his spiritual meanings, Calvin with 
his hard theology. Can you be at unity with 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 83 

these in the one Church of Christ? Not with 
their interpretations, but with the God they 
found by means thereof. The devotional use of 
Holy Scripture ministers a common blessing to 
the Scotch peasant woman, and to Lightfoot of 
Durham. The Scotch woman's Calvinism, and 
the Bishop's critical scholarship, are not the 
Bible, are not characteristics of the Word of 
God that make it holy ; they are human means 
of finding Him. We may agree with the one or 
with the other as partisans, and have no Word 
of God. We may agree with both as seekers of 
Him through His truth, and find a divine unity 
over human contradictions. Use a thing for its 
purpose, and it reveals a genius, a value. Use it 
for some other purpose, and it is defective, awk- 
ward. The purpose of the Holy Scriptures is the 
revelation of God's character and man's duty. 
Read in the light of that purpose it is written in 
no language, in no style, in no climate ; for all 
can discern through these lower media the moun- 
tain peaks — God's love and Christ's beauty, 
m an's privilege and man's hope. 



84 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

We hold out to our brethren of every name 
the Holy Scriptures. It is theirs as well as ours. 
Here it is ; it might be freer from human imper- 
fections, there might be something added worthy 
of praise. But here it is, surely itself cherished, 
divine. It is a sacred book, but not too sacred 
to be read. It is a treasured book, but not as a 
fetich. It is a noble literary composition, but 
this is not its spiritual claim. It fears no com- 
parison with other sacred books. It fears no 
inspection, when approached -with an under- 
standing of its purpose. It has no traditional 
pre-emption from inquiry. It is under no law of 
a dead hand. It is God's word by holy men, 
telling what He had to tell, what they felt they 
must tell in His name, what else the world 
would have gone on without to its unspeakable 
loss. 

And a divided Christendom, reading it to- 
gether, may find there, if they will, — and find 
nowhere else at first hand, — God is love, Christ 
is divine, man is a sinner, his Father calls him 
home and provides the way to come. And that 



THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 85 

is a message to whose four notes the manifold 
voices of every nation, and kindred, and people, 
and tongue, may be attuned into a swelling 
harmony of united thanksgiving and praise. 

And unto Him that loved us, and washed us 
from our sins in His own blood, and hath made 
us kings and priests unto God and His Father ; 
to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. 
Amen. 



III. 



The Creeds. 



BY THE REV. JOHN WRIGHT, Di- 
rector OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCH 
ST. PAUL. 



III. 
Ube Creefcs. 

By the Rev. John Wright, D.D., 
Rector of St. Paul's Church, St. Paul. 

(B). "The Apostles' Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; 
and the Xicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the 
Christian faith." — Lambeth Quadrilateral. 

A LL great movements are preceded by agita- 
tion and discussion. Church unity must 
follow the same course, for no subject demands 
a more careful consideration, and deliberate in- 
vestigation. No one expects to see this consum- 
mated in the near future, and any haste without 
due reflection would end in failure. A unity 
based upon mere sentiment with essentials ig- 
nored could sustain only a brief existence. 
Strongly seated prejudices, the love for party 
lines, and the memory of the animosities and 
the bitterness that accompanied past separa- 
tions, must be educated out of many minds 



90 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

Even some views that are popular, and that are 
taught with enthusiasm must be swept away. 
The spirit that applauds denominational differ- 
erences and regards division as wise, and as con- 
ducive to growth certainly presents a fallacious 
argument. What thoughtful man can possibly 
justify the existence of nine kinds of Methodists, 
twelve kinds of Presbyterians, and fourteen vari- 
eties of Baptists ? It has been computed that 
the divisions and the subdivisions of Christen- 
dom number over twelve hundred. Who can 
for a moment hold that twelve hundred armies 
only partially equipped can do as effective serv- 
ice as one splendidly organized army under one 
leadership and presenting a solid front against 
sin? Consider also how the missionary forces 
of Christianity are dissipated and weakened by 
the unwarranted divisions that exist among the 
friends of Christ. Bishop Gailor in comparing 
the corporate unity that once existed in the 
Church, with its present divided state very truly 
says that " it is a significant fact that no great 
people has been converted to Christianity since 



THE CREEDS. 91 



that original unity of the Church was lost."* 
Another of our Communion has justly said 
that " schism is worse than wasteful, it is waste- 
fully destructive. ' ' f 

President Andrews of Brown University, re- 
cently delivered a lecture before the Union Theo- 
logical Seminary, New York City, on Church 
Unity. His subject was the " Sin of Schism." 
Throughout the lecture he held the position that 
" denominationalism is a modern conception and 
is not supported by the New Testament." 

An additional fallacy that must be uprooted, 
is the one frequently advanced that if a man be- 
long to the invisible Church, it is of little account 
where and what the visible Church is. This is 
one of the most decided obstructions to Church 
unity. Christ clearly said, " The Kingdom of 
God is within you;" indicating the necessity of 
a spiritual reception of Divine things. But this 
was not all, for He spent much of His time 

*New York Church Club Lectures for 1895 ; p. 9. 

fRev. Dr. John Fulton in Introduction to Christian 
Unity and Christian Faith. 



92 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

before His Ascension in instructing His disciples 
about an outward kingdom, with its ministry 
and Sacramental rites. The visible Church 
here in the world is therefore by Christ's own 
appointment. It is not a man-made but a Di- 
vine institution. 

Associated with the thought of the visible 
Church, is the thought of a Creed, for a Church 
without a Creed is like an army without a ban- 
ner, or a State without a constitution. More- 
over, a Creed gets its suggestion from Holy 
Scripture. Martha at the grave of Lazarus said 
to our Blessed Lord, " I believe that Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of God;" the declaration of 
St. Peter, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
living God;" and the words of the eunuch to 
St. Philip, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son 
of God," are expressions of personal belief. And 
what is a Creed but this ? Our Divine Lord re- 
peatedly referred to His death, His Resurrection 
and Ascension, events that were noted by the 
early Church in Creed form. What is still more 
in the shape of a rule of Faith, is found in the 



THE CREEDS. 93 



Sixth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
where we read, " Of the doctrine of baptisms, 
and of laying on of hands, and of the resurrec- 
tion of the dead and eternal judgment." There 
is an intimation of the same kind in the injunc- 
tion of St. Paul to St. Timothy, "Hold fast the 
form of sound words, which thou hast heard of 
me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." 
With these warrants from Scripture it is not 
surprising that there came into existence at an 
early day the symbol commonly called the 
Apostles' Creed. When it originated and just 
where, cannot be determined. It grew with the 
life of the Church, and supplied for personal 
belief a simple and concrete expression of what 
Christianity stood for. It certainly belongs to 
the days of the Apostles if not directly formulated 
by them. This is claimed for it by early writ- 
ers. Irenaeus, in 180, says it was " received from 
the Apostles." Tertullian, in 200, dates it "from 
the commencement of the Gospel." Basil, in 
329 says, " Of the institutes and doctrines pre- 
served in the Church, we possess some from 



94 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

the teaching of Scripture, but others that have 
been transmitted to us we have received by the 
mystery of Apostolical tradition." Rufinus, in 
390 writes of the Creed, that it was " handed 
down by the Apostles . ' ' Other writers of a later 
date speak in the same strain. Calvin in his 
Institutes, adds his opinion when he writes, "I 
name it the Apostles' Creed although I care little 
about the authorship. Certainly it is assigned 
to the Apostles by the general consent of ancient 
writers, either because they thought it was writ- 
ten and published by the Apostles in a body, or be- 
cause they considered that a compendium of the 
doctrine delivered by their agency, and faithfully 
compiled, ought to be distinguished by this title. 
I cannot entertain a doubt, however, but that 
its authority, as a public and universally received 
Confession of Faith, dates from the first origin 
of the Church, and, therefore, from the very days 
of the Apostles, from whatever source it may 
have eminated. And it is not likely that it 
should have been written by any private indi- 
vidual, since it is manifest that from the date of 



THE CREEDS. 95 



our earliest records, it has always enjoyed a 
sacred authority among the faithful."* This 
surely is high praise from a Presbyterian source. 

Enshrined as the Creed has been in the 
ages of Church history it is interesting to follow 
this symbol through the stages of its use. 

At first it was connected with the baptismal 
rite. The candidate for Baptism was asked, 
" Dost thou believe ? " The answer came, " I be- 
lieve in God the Father," etc., through the 
Creed. The symbol was not committed to writ- 
ing, but to memory, for it was a sign or mystery 
known only to the initiated. According to early 
writers the candidate was cautioned to recite it 
in a low tone lest the mysteries of the Faith 
be communicated to those whose education in 
preparation for Baptism was not yet complete. 
As the Creed was a personal testimony of belief 
it was in the singular number, "I believe." So 
we see that its first use was catechetical. 

The next step in its use was in the way of 



* Institutes, vol. 2 p. 16. 



96 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

emphasizing discipleship. In days of persecu- 
tion Christians made themselves known to 
each other by the Creed. The heathen world 
was in ignorance of the sacred form and it was 
revealed only to the baptized. It was also the 
way by which disciples not personally known to 
their brethren were admitted to the Holy Com- 
munion. 

The Rev. E. Burbridge writes: "The Creed 
which was entrusted to Christian people with 
so much solemnity at the time of their baptism 
was stored up in their memories for continual 
use. But for many centuries the ordinary daily 
use of the Creed seems to have been confined to 
private repetition. For instance in the Mozara- 
bic Missal in the service for Palm Sunday on 
which day the Creed was delivered in the Span- 
ish Church to those about to be baptized, an 
address was provided, taken from a sermon to 
catechumens by St. Augustine in which the peo- 
ple were exhorted to use it daily before going to 
sleep and before starting to their work, with a 
caution expressing the objection which was felt 



THE CREEDS. 97 



to its being committed to writing. After which 
it was solemnly repeated by all three times. "* 

Its third use was in the way of testing loyalty 
to the Church. When heresies multiplied the 
Creed was the token of allegiance to the truth. 
If men were in league with error, they could 
not consistently recite the Creed . 

The fourth stage was reached when the 
Creed passed from an oral to a written form. 
When persecutions ceased the necessity of re- 
taining it in the memory only was no longer re- 
quired. The date of its appearance in writing 
we may conjecture from ancient manuscripts. 
It is found for the first time in the writings of 
Rufinus, 390, in Latin. It is also found in 
full in the Utrecht Psalter, whose date Arch- 
bishop Usher placed at 597. It is seen in the 
copy of King Athelstan's Psalter, preserved in 
the British Museum. Its probable date is the 
year 700. It is likewise found in the Psalter of 
Charlemagne preserved in a Church at Bremen. 
The date, according to scholars, ranges from 

* Liturgies and Offices of the Church, p. 343. 



98 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

780 to 880. It is quite evident that the com- 
plete text of the Apostles' Creed was in written 
form throughout the Christian world by the 
Eighth Century. 

The last stage in the use of the Creed was 
attained when it ceased to be a private formula, 
used only by the baptized, and was introduced 
into liturgical services. In 816 the Synod of 
Aix la Chapelle directed that the Creed be used in 
the daily offices. How early it was used in the 
Anglican Church in her liturgical forms cannot 
be exactly stated, though some scholars give the 
year 758 as the date when it was introduced 
into the Salisbury use by St. Osmund. While 
known and used in the Latin Church, it was not 
formally placed in the Canon of the Mass until 
1014, when it was so ordered by Benedict VIII. 
In the early English Church the Creed was 
recited alone by the minister until the words "life 
everlasting" "were reached, when the congrega- 
tion joined him. In the Second Prayer Book of 
Edward VI, 1552, a rubric directed that the 
Creed be said both by "minister and people." 



THE CREEDS. 99 



I have spoken of these stages in the history 
of the Creed for the purpose of showing how 
wonderfully it has adapted itself to the diversi- 
fied needs of humanity. What a splendid and 
invaluable service it has rendered as a baptismal 
form, a confession of discipleship, a test of loy- 
alty, a pledge of orthodoxy, and a liturgical and 
devotional symbol ! What a glorious climax of 
blessedness would that be if in the providence of 
God it became the instrument by which the dis- 
severed ranks of Christendom should be brought 
together in one fold under one Shepherd ! 

Considering what the Apostles' Creed stands 
for, the tributes paid it by the Fathers of the 
Church are true in every word. Irenasus speaks of 
it as "the proclamation of the truth;" Tertullian 
and Cyprian as the " Sacrament of the Faith; " 
Novatian as the "rule of the truth ;" Rufinus as 
the "standard of preaching, " and the "citadel 
of the Faith;" and Ambrose as the " watchword 
of the Apostles." And down all the ages since 
these words of the Fathers were uttered, they 
have been re-echoed by the lips of thousands and 



100 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

tens of thousands of holy men and women, 
wherever the blessed Cross has been uplifted. 
Dr. Schaff says of the Apostles' Creed: "It is 
not a logical statement of abstract doctrines, 
but a profession of living facts and saving 
truths. It is a liturgical poem and an act of 
worship. Like the Lord's Prayer it loses none 
of its charm and effect by frequent use. It is 
intelligible and edifying to a child and fresh and 
rich to the profoundest Christian scholar who, 
as he advances in age, delights to go back to 
primitive foundations and first principles. It 
has the fragrance of antiquity and the inestim- 
able weight of universal consent." 

The Nicene Creed was born under circum- 
stances very different from those that surrounded 
the Apostles' Creed. The symbol of Nicasa an- 
ciently read, " We believe," and this was quite in 
keeping with its history, for it was the gift of the 
Church in her collective capacity, being brought 
into existence by the action of the General 
Councils. Its early acceptance was emphatic, 
for it was confirmed by the Council of Ephesus 



THE CREEDS. 101 



in 431, and in its expanded form by the Council 
of Chalcedon in 451. 

Its liturgical use followed quickly for the most 
part, as compared with the Apostles' Creed, 
as in 471, Peter, the patriarch of Antioch, di- 
rected it to be used in every Church in his jurisdic- 
tion, and in 511, Timotheus, the patriarch of 
Constantinople, also endorsed it as a liturgical 
form. In 589, the Council of Toledo ordered 
its public recital, and in 814, it was in the 
same way placed in the ritual of the Gallican 
Church, and probably about the same date in that 
of the early English Church . Lastly it was by the 
authority of Benedict VIII. , introduced into the 
service of the Mass of the Latin Church at the 
same time with the Apostles' Creed, in 1014. 

The Council that gathered at Nice was most 
remarkable and unique in its composition. 
" Never since the death of the Apostles," says 
Bishop Forbes, " did the Christian world behold 
a Synod with higher claims to be considered 
universal and free, or an assembly of Bishops 
more august and holy. For at that Council as 



102 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

Eusebius says, there were assembled out of all 
the Churches which had filled the whole of 
Europe, Asia and Africa, the very choicest from 
the ministers of God, and one sacred building 
expanded as it were by the divine command, 
embraced at once within its compass both 
Syrians and Cilicians, Phoenicians and Arabians, 
and Christians of Palestine, Egyptians too, 
Thebans and Lybians and some who came out 
of Mesopotamia. A Bishop also from Persia 
was present at the Council, and even Scythia 
was not wanting to that company. Pontus also 
and Galatia, Pamphilia and Cappadocia with 
Asia and Phrygia, contributed their choicest 
Prelates. Moreover, Thraeians, Macedonians, 
Achaians, and Epirotes, and inhabitants of still 
more remote districts were, notwithstanding 
their distance, present. Even from Spain, that 
most celebrated man — Hosius — took his seat 
among the rest. The prelate of the imperial city 
of Rome was indeed absent on account of his 
advanced age, but presbyters of his were present 
to supply his place." * 

* A Short Explanation of the Nicene Creed, p. 4. 



THE CREEDS. 103 



It was an assemblage of men of splendid 
mental equipment, of undaunted courage and 
unwavering faith. There was the youthful 
Athanasius, not strictly a member of the Coun- 
cil, but one who w-as present as an attend- 
ant of his Bishop, drawn into the debate 
by permission and springing to the front by his 
acuteness of reasoning and the fire of his elo- 
quence, and doing more than am r other speaker to 
mould the decisions of the Council. Gregory- of 
Xaziansus says of Athanasius, that he had a face 
as radiant as that of an angel, and that he w^as 
"accessible to all, slow to anger, quick in sym- 
pathy, pleasant in conversation, and still more 
pleasant in temper, effective alike in discourse 
and action, assiduous in devotions, helpful to 
Christians of every class and age, a theologian 
with the speculative, a comforter of the afflicted, 
a staff to the aged, a guide to the young." 

Another prominent figure in that Council was 
the aged Hosius, the Bishop of Cordova, who 
honored the Episcopate for 70 years. As a keen 
theologian and profound scholar he exercised a 



104 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

commanding influence. And there, too, was 
Eusebius Pamphilus, the Bishop of Caesarea, 
noted for his forceful pen, his oratorical ability 
and his stores of historic knowledge. Another 
sublime hero, undaunted in his advocacy of 
truth, was Eustathius, the Bishop of Beraea, 
who, for his service against the Arians, was pro- 
moted in 325 to the patriarchate of Antioch. 
And there, too, was Alexander, the Bishop of 
Alexandria, whose clear and outspoken words 
brought heresy face to face with truth, and made 
the Council of Nicaea a necessity. There were 
scores of others whose names have not come 
down to us, who were mighty men of valor. 
They were all serious men who had come to- 
gether for a serious purpose. They were not 
servants of the Church who had been living an 
easy, self-indulgent life. The remarkable state- 
ment has come down to us through history that 
of the three hundred and eighteen Bishops gath- 
ered together at the Nicene Council, only fifteen of 
the number had not been called upon to endure 
persecution. Most of the members of that vast 



THE CREEDS. 105 



concourse could say with St. Paul, " I bear in my 
body the marks of the Lord Jesus. ' ' Through the 
privations of the dungeon, forms were bowed 
down, the cruel spear had made that eye sightless , 
or yonder face scarred, and the sword had parted 
limbs from the body. These were the men bap- 
tized in the fires of persecution, who met and 
defeated heres}-, and who gave us that glorious 
formula that affirms in trumpet tones the bles- 
sedness of the Incarnation, the Divinity of our 
dear Lord and the truth of the undivided Trinit3 r . 
In 381, when the Council of Constantinople 
supplemented the Nicene Creed by asserting the 
Divinity of the Holy Spirit, Christendom was in 
the possession of a complete body of Divinity 
bearing the seal of authority. It is a source of 
regret that there should be any difference in the 
rendering of this grand old symbol among the 
great historic Churches in reference to the double 
procession of the Holy Spirit. It is to be re- 
gretted that even a single word has been dropped 
out of our English version of the Creed. In the 
Latin and Greek rendering the word "holy " is 



106 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

_ 

placed before " Catholic," but for some rea- 
son, perhaps from inadvertency, the "holy" is 
omitted from our English version of the Nicene 
symbol. 

When the time shall come for the realization 
of the Saviour's prayer for unity, is it not rea- 
sonable to expect that around the two Creeds 
will gather the hosts that seek that unity ? There 
are potent and convincing arguments why this 
should be so. The Creeds are pre-eminently 
Scriptural. In decided language without the 
shadow of a doubt, they affirm the great doc- 
trines that Holy Writ contains. In nearly all 
the primitive liturgies the Creed was placed 
after the Gospel, thus re-affirming in the words 
of man what had already been said in the 
words of inspiration. A proficient liturgical 
writer savs, "In the Roman and old English 
rites the Creed follows the Gospel. In the Am- 
brosian it is deferred till after the Offertory. 
The Mozarabic is peculiar in substituting it for 
the brief Hymn or Confession of Faith at the 
elevation of the consecrated gifts. In the East, 



THE CREEDS. 107 



it keeps its place after the Gospel in the Armenian 
rite, and only a few intercessory prayers inter- 
vene in the Ethiopic. But under the Catechu- 
menical system it was usually thought necessary 
to defer it until the Catechumens had been dis- 
missed. Thus it occurs after the Great Entrance 
in the Liturgy of St. James, and in the Syriac, 
Coptic and Xestorian Liturgies. In the Liturgy 
of St. Mark, and in that of Constantinople it is 
put off a step further, until after the Kiss of 
Peace. The facts, therefore, point distinctly to 
the position after the Gospel as primitive."* 

Again, the Creeds should be the rallying 
points of unity, because the\^ represent the mind 
of the Church before she was broken up into 
dissenting elements. The Creeds do not repre- 
sent a party, a system or a theory, but they are 
the consensus of an undivided Church. Certainly 
no one would for a moment think of unity on 
the basis of later confessions of Faith, formular- 
ies or Articles. You would not associate it with 

"Rev. John E. Field in The Apostolic Liturgy and the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, pp. 446-4-47. 



108 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

the Confessions of Augsburg, Westminster, 
Dort, Heidelberg and Saybrook. Nor would 
you identify unity with the Thirty-nine Articles 
of the Church of England. The latter have been 
tinkered and repaired in themost ruthless manner. 
Originally formed in 1552 they consisted of 
forty-two articles. Then they were repealed in 
the reign of Queen Mary. In 1562 they were 
revised and accepted, as now found in English 
Prayer Books. When the American Church sepa- 
rated from the Mother Church of England the 
Articles as they appeared in the Proposed 
Prayer Book of 1786, were reduced to twenty in 
number, and those that were left were in most 
cases changed. But the Proposed Prayer Book 
was rejected and with it the Articles. The 
Church seriously considered the expediency of 
doing without the Articles and they did not ap- 
pear in the first Standard Prayer Book of 1790. 
Then the matter was reconsidered and the con- 
struction or reconstruction of the Articles set in 
afresh, until they appeared as they were estab- 
lished by the General Convention of 1801. 



THE CREEDS. 109 



Bishop White tells us that during the early Con- 
ventions the most acrimonious debates took 
place over the wording of the Articles. The 
Seventeenth Article, on Predestination, was so 
battered and bruised that the poor thing could 
hardly be recognized when it reappeared in 1801. 
The repairs put upon the Articles should have 
lasted for all time, but the end was not yet, for 
in 1875 the Reformed Episcopalians renewed the 
attack, and they have their version of the Articles 
thirty-five in number. How very plain then it 
must seem to us that Confessions of faith, form- 
ularies and Articles brought into existence after 
the Creeds, cannot enter into the movement for 
unity. They are modern and local. They are 
purely theological, while the Creeds are both 
doctrinal and devotional. The Creeds are the 
reminders of the Unity the Church once enjoyed, 
while the later Confessions and Articles are the 
signs of diversity and separation. There is 
nothing fragrant nor ancient in their history. 

Neither can unity be accomplished on any 
fancied liturgical adaptation. Individualism 



110 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

has been busy over this matter for years, and it 
has left the wreckage of its efforts all along the 
line. 

In 1797, Nathan Davies of Boston, had a 
dream of Church unity and that year he issued 
a service book bearing the title, " A Catholic 
Liturgy, for Christians, of all denominations." 
The title was a. misnomer, for the volume did 
not contain a single sacramental rite. Mr. 
Davies also projected a series of lectures to ex- 
plain his mission. There was to be an entrance 
fee and all sums over and above expenses were 
to be given to the poor of Boston. But the 
lectures were never delivered, the poor never re- 
ceived their money, and after nearly a hundred 
years all that is left of the movement, is a single 
copy of the book, preserved in the library of the 
New York Historical Society, among rare 
Americana. 

Another effort in a different country was 
made in 1815. A Book of Common Prayer for 
the use of all Christians, appeared at Birming- 
ham, England, in that year. It was edited by 



THE CREEDS. Ill 



the Rev. Peter Gandolphy, a learned Priest of 
the Roman Catholic Church. The book was 
compiled from various sources, but chiefly from 
the services of the Mass of the Latin Church. 
Gandolphy had high hopes that this composite 
liturgy would lead to Church unity. But he 
was disappointed. At the start he incurred the 
displeasure of his Bishop, who suspended him. 
The book to-day is a rare one and is found only 
in the library of the bibliophile. 

In 1821, the Rev. George Dashiel, of the dio- 
cese of Alaryland, with a few deacons withdrew 
from the American Episcopal Church and formed 
what was called "The Evangelical Episcopal 
Church." It lasted for about three months and 
then vanished forever. Its exponent was a 
Prayer Book, patterned for the most part after 
the Proposed Prayer Book of 1786. The book 
is now classed among the curiosities of early 
American literature. 

The most singular attempt at ritual adjust- 
ment on record was made in 1847 by David 
Sears, of Boston. The book he compiled is called 



112 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

" The Christian Liturgy of the Apostolic Catholic 
or Universal Church of Christ." It draws from 
three sources, namely : Unitarian forms and the 
ritual of the Roman Catholic and American 
Episcopal Churches. To carry out the special 
features of this book the compiler thought it 
necessary to have a new form of Church govern- 
ment. This he explains as consisting of what 
was called " The Holy Council," made up of not 
less than forty and not more than eighty priests. 
This was to be presided over by one who was 
denominated "The Chief Priest," who was a 
sort of pope or primate. 

Boston is a tolerant city, and rejoices in a 
large variety of religious views, but even Boston 
did not appreciate this attempt at Church 
unity, and the Prayer Book of the "Apostolic 
Catholic Church" never travelled beyond the 
bounds of the little congregation where it was 
first used. 

The Rev. W. D. Haley, in 1859, prepared a 
service book for the use of what he called " The 
Broad Church," so "broad" that it was to take 



THE CREEDS. 113 



in everybody, with a creed or without a creed. 
That book saw but one edition, that is, its first 
edition was also its last. 

Numerous other cases might be cited of at- 
tempts toward Church unity made through 
individually prepared liturgies, but they have 
all failed, and deservedly so, for there can be no 
modern substitutes for the Creeds of Christen- 
dom. 

One of the hopeful signs of modern days is 
that nearly all Christian peoples are in touch 
concerning the acceptance of the Apostles' Creed- 
Those bodies that have desired a more complete 
statement of Christian doctrine and that have 
given any attention to primitive practice and 
claims, have also endorsed the Nicene Creed 
The liturgy of the Reformed Dutch Church, 
translated into English in New York City, in 
1767, contained not only the Apostles' Creed, 
and the Nicene, but also the Athanasian. The 
liturgies that are in use by Lutheran congrega- 
tions in this country contain the Apostles' and 
Nicene Creeds, and, in some cases, the Athanasian. 



114 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

The first Moravian Prayer Book published in 
Philadelphia in 1813, contains the Apostles' 
Creed, rendered in an enlarged or paraphrased 
form. The Unitarian Prayer Book of King's 
Chapel, Boston, of 1785, dispensed with the 
Nicene Creed. The Apostles' Creed, however, 
was retained, but the sentences, "He descended 
into hell," "the holy Catholic Church," and 
"the communion of Saints," were omitted. 
About fifty years ago a book appeared bearing 
the title " Eutaxia." It was a plea for the use 
of liturgies among Presbyterians. It was writ- 
ten by the Rev. Mr. Baird, but he was not cour- 
ageous enough to attach his name to the book, 
as the subject in his day was not popular with 
the denomination he represented. But in after 
years that prejudice against liturgies was in 
some measure removed. 

St. Peter's Presbyterian Church of Rochester, 
N. Y., was organized in 1853. The pastor, 
the Rev. Dr. Bacon, prepared a Book of Worship 
that contains the Apostles' Creed and most of 
the musical service of the Book of Common 



THE CREEDS. 115 



Prayer. The congregation has never wholly 
parted with these devotional forms. The pres- 
ent pastor, the Rev. Alfred J. Hutton, D.D., 
writes : " It is perhaps ten years since the Even- 
ing Service was modified. Nothing could induce 
the people, however, to give up or change their 
morning order. Forty years ago this Church 
was singular in this respect and widely deemep 
semi-Episcopal. But Presbyterians are coming 
to know much better than that. We are now 
only singular in the excellency of our order as 
compared with the mongrel affairs that have 
been extemporized for so many of our Churches." 
In this tribute to a liturgy the Rev. Dr. Hutton 
does not stand alone among Presbyterians. The 
Rev. Dr. Shields, of Princeton, a most ardent 
friend of Church unity, prepared a Book of Com- 
mon Prayer for Presbyterians that was pub- 
lished in 1864 in a thick volume of 825 pages, of 
which 637 pages are given to the pre-composed 
forms. It contains both the Creeds and borrows 
liberally from our own ritual. The book closes 
with elaborately prepared tables showing the 



116 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

origin of liturgical forms — a piece of scholarship 
that would do credit to any Churchman in the 
land. 

Additional argument is not needed to show 
that already many Christian peoples are in touch 
with each other in the acceptance of the Creeds. 
This feature of Church Unity is worthy of our 
most enthusiastic encouragement. If we get 
nearer to each other in the Creeds, may it not 
lead to a closer union on the other essentials of 
the Primitive Church! 

The Creeds are our safeguards. They do not 
deal in negations, but in sublime affirmations, 
for they are designed to build up our faith and 
to dispel our doubts. The Creeds are the syn- 
onyms of symplicity, for their language is so 
plain, that a child can understand, and they do 
not employ the technicalities of theology. The 
Creeds are adapted to every human want. Sci- 
ence has changed its deductions many times over, 
but the Creeds have stood in all their majesty 
unchanged, and have adapted themselves to 



THE CREEDS. 117 



modern thought as well as to the thought of 
every age. The Creeds may be said or sung, for 
they are devotional forms capable of lifting up 
our wearied hearts towards God, and heaven 
and immortality. 



IV. 

The Sacrament^. 

BY THE REV. JOHN J. FAUDE, 

RECTOR OF GETHSEMANE CHURCH, 
MINNEAPOLIS. 



IV. 

ZTbe Sacraments.* 

By the Rev. John J. Faude, 
Rector of Gethsemane Church, Minneapolis. 

(C). "The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Him- 
self—Baptism and the Supper of the Lord — ministered with 
unfailing use of Christ's words of Institution, and of the 
elements ordained by Him." — Lambeth Quadrilateral. 

\ I 7E are here to-night to consider, mainly, the 
place of the two " generally necessary" 
Sacraments in the great hope of the restoration 
of the broken unity of Christ's Body, the Church. 
That is to say, the discussion of the two greater 
Sacraments on this occasion will be not a doc- 
trinal discussion so much as a consideration of 
what view of these Sacraments will help Christ- 
endom in the consummation so devoutly to be 
wished "that they all may be one." For, the 
discouraging discovery confronts us very soon 
after we enter upon the study of the question of 

* Condensed from stenographic notes. 



122 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

unity, that these four points which have been set 
forth as the basis upon which the Anglican 
Communion invites conferences upon the matter 
of restoring Church Unity are the very points 
upon which" all who profess and call themselves 
Christians" have differed, and magnified their 
differences into grounds for separation. Thus, 
whether we recognize their claim or not, there 
are those who lay claim to the name of Chris- 
tian and yet assert that the Bible is to be 
looked upon only as any other book, bringing 
to any individual just what that individual 
may make of it, and that it has nothing author- 
itative in it except that which each one may 
discover for himself to be authoritative; while 
on the other hand we recognize the Bible as 
being Holy Scriptures, with all that is implied 
under the term holy; as containing all things 
necessary to salvation; and as being the rule 
and ultimate standard of faith. To be consist- 
ent with the "right of private interpretation" 
one must be indifferent to every person's "view" 
of the Scriptures, because each one's private 



THE SACRAMENTS. 123 

interpretation after all determines his attitude 
towards them. Indeed here is the crux of the 
whole matter of the divisions of Christendom, 
whether we recognize that the supernatual 
enters at all into the Holy Scriptures, the Sacra- 
ments, the Minis try of the Church, and the 
Creeds as being the inspired and therefore 
authoritative voice of the divinely constituted 
Church of Christ — or whether all these are things 
of purely human origin, to be changed as we 
may see fit, from time to time. Upon this latter 
line of thinking it will be utterly impossible to 
have consentient thought even upon the great 
verities that pertain to the redemption of man- 
kind. Never, so long as we fail to recognize the 
supernatural ; never, so long as we fail to recog- 
nize that the Church is Christ's Body ; never, un- 
til we recognize that the Holy Scriptures are the 
Word of God ; never, until we recognize that the 
power of the Ministr \ T is not something built up by 
human craft and ambition, but comes of Christ's 
institution; and never, until we recognize that 
therefore the Sacraments have something more 



124 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

than of human value, shall we effect a reunion of 
Christendom which will be permanent. The 
only permanent is the eternal, and the eternal 
was never of human origin, but of divine. I do 
not value that " practical" argument for re- 
union, that there is so much waste of men and 
means in our divisions. That argument may 
have weight with those who are of an economic 
turn of mind, but so long as men believe that 
these things upon which they have differed are 
things that touch the very soul of man, they 
will reply, and, I think very properly, "Your 
argument of dollars and cents has no weight 
with me at all. Your argument as to the num- 
ber of men that might be concentrated upon any 
given point has no value in my mind. These 
matters which divide us are matters of con- 
science; they cannot be offset by any gains in 
economic value, for they are matters of spiritual 
life and death to humanity." 

Let us be patient. This question of Church 
Unity is one we need not, must not try to force. 
We certainly cannot hasten it by any ill-advised 



THE SACRAMENTS. 125 

measures looking to the surrender of the Cath- 
olic faith and practice. We may hasten it by 
showing how the adoption of the Catholic faith 
and practice answers the needs of humanity. 

Now there are two Sacraments which are 
1 ' generally necessary to salvation," " ordained 
by Christ Himself." That they were instituted 
by Him must make them of special value, but I 
would call your attention to the fact that each 
of these Sacraments was instituted at a peculiar 
time, or event, in His life-work — the human 
work for the redemption of man. 

The Sacrament of Baptism was commanded 
for all men just as our Lord was about to take 
this human nature, which He had carried on 
earth for the space of three and thirty years, 
into heaven. His soul, His spirit, God in other 
words, going back into heaven, but with hu- 
manity. It was this human nature of ours, 
spiritualized and glorified indeed, but still this 
human nature, which Christ ascended with and 
took into heaven, teaching us that these bodies 
of ours have a recognized share in that entrance 



126 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

into heaven itself. And there, brethren, is where, 
it seems to me, comes the strongest reason for 
our accepting the truth that this human nature 
of ours needs Sacraments to touch the bodily 
nature. It may be said: "Is it possible that 
God, who 'is a Spirit,' conveys spiritual grace 
to men through material means, when it is the 
soul of man that is concerned, the soul that is to 
be saved, the soul that commits sin, the soul 
that is to develop righteousness ?' ' Ah, yes! 
Jesus Christ took our human nature into 
heaven at His ascension. This human nature 
then, the whole nature, the animal nature even, 
that needs to be cleansed, to be purified, so that 
it shall be fit for entrance into heaven. After 
all, this body is something more than a casket 
for the spirit. Says the Apostle : "What, know 
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy 
Ghost ? " It is the body that so often proclaims 
the acts of the soul, and that reacts upon the 
soul; this body needs material cleansing as 
much as the spiritual cleansing is needed. Of 
this material as well as spiritual cleansing Bap- 



THE SACRAMENTS. 127 

tism is the sign and seal, and it finds its doc- 
trinal statement in the phrase, "The remission 
of sins," a remission about which we can have 
no doubts . Indeed so unequivocal is the Church's 
position upon the subject that the strong and 
unmistakable words are used, "A death unto 
sin and a new birth unto righteousness." More- 
over this death unto the one and new birth unto 
the other are declared to be "given unto us" 
through the means of Baptism, which is also 
the "pledge to assure us" of the "death" and 
the "new birth." Baptism, then, is not the 
expression of a hope that the sins may be for- 
given at some time in the future ; they are then 
and there forgiven to the penitent. Otherwise 
the Scriptural declarations are but mockeries. 
What mean those words, "Repent and be bap- 
tized .... for the remission of sins ; " or, 
"Be baptized and wash away thy sins;" or, 
"Buried with Him in Baptism, wherein also ye 
are risen with Him " if the remission, the wash- 
ing away of sin, the burial and resurrection 
with Him do not take place in Baptism ? 



128 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

But that Sacrament of Baptism has also cer- 
tain other aspects . By means of it the human be- 
ing is adopted into the family of God, made a sub- 
ject of the kingdom of heaven and a member of 
Christ. Some indeed maintain that it is only 
the human being's public declaration of his in- 
tention to follow the Christian life, or, in the 
Baptism of an infant, the " dedication" of the 
child to God, by the parents, signifying their 
pious wish that the little one may have the grace 
of God henceforth. Certainly these ' ' views ' ' are 
varied enough to embrace the entire range of 
human opinion. But is there not in this very 
fact something for us to start with on the road 
to Unity ? Here is a Christian brother of another 
Communion who has no other conception of 
this Sacrament than that it is a ceremony of 
admission which enrolls the subject into the 
human organization or congregation. We can 
start with him and say : " The Catholic Church 
accepts you, even with your limited conception 
of the value and significance of this Sacrament. 
She only pleads, in the spirit of Catholicity, that 



THE SACRAMENTS. 129 

you will not excommunicate us for holding more, 
nor — for the spirit of the two is the same — cut 
yourself off from us . ' ■ 

For, Catholicity is broad, generous, compre- 
hensive, while sectism is narrow and exclusive. 
The Catholic Church has never driven men from 
her fold because they held but partial truth. 
The force that has driven the Christian Church 
asunder into multitudinous fragments is the 
spirit of intolerance which would make one's 
own conscience the guide for another man, or 
which makes the grasp of truth by a section 
of men the limit of the grasp for the Church uni- 
versal. In other words men have said, "We see 
this, we comprehend that ; this view should be 
emphasized, that should be submerged ; we can- 
not continue in unity with those who hold a 
fraction more or less than we hold." This is the 
essence of schism, of sectarianism. But, my 
brother, you who hold the partial truth that 
Baptism is an admissory rite, beware of saying 
that there is nothing more in this Sacrament, 
lest you give way to that spirit of division 



130 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

that has been the cause of the present broken 
unity of Christ's Bod}', the Church. And you, 
my brother, who hold more than that, who 
hold that the Sacraments are not figures only, 
not metaphors in material form, but realities; 
that Baptism does indeed wash away the origi- 
nal sin of the infant, and the actual sin of which 
he has been guilty who now comes as a penitent ; 
you who have the highest conception of the 
efficacy of this Sacrament, beware you also that 
in your very zeal for Divine truth you do not 
lose sight of that Catholic, comprehensive, all- 
embracing spirit which is an indispensable con- 
dition of the unity of the spirit and the bond of 
peace ; beware lest in uttering one word of con. 
demnation in harshness of spirit, you commit 
the sin of schism by driving another into schism. 
But there is another Sacrament, likewise in- 
stituted by our Lord at a crisis in His life work 
on earth — that night in which He was betrayed, 
the night before He laid down His life. Already 
there was before His vision His own broken 
Bodv and shed Blood; for it was one of the 



THE SACRAMENTS. 131 

parts of Christ's suffering, and one that intensi- 
fied that suffering, that He knew what was be- 
fore Him, what He should have to bear ; knew 
the end from the very beginning. So, on that 
night when He was betrayed ; after Judas had 
heen sent out ; when only the faithful ones had 
been allowed to remain, Christ gives to them 
the Sacrament whereby spiritual sustenance is 
to be given. Why was this special time selected 
for instituting the great Sacrament ? We can- 
not, of course, enter into the full mind of Christ 
in reference to any circumstances about which 
He has not revealed Himself, so as to interpret 
His motives, but certainly there must have been 
left upon the minds of those Apostles, as they 
thought back upon that night and rehearsed the 
events of the following day, a strong sense of 
the nearness to each o thereof the two events — 
the institution of the Christian Sacrifice and 
the offering of the Real Sacrifice, which should 
give efficacy to the former. 

•It does not seem as if any true conception 
of this Sacrament could be satisfied with the 



132 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

idea of its being a mere memorial of the death 
of Christ upon the Cross. Some graphic picture 
of the Crucifixion would have answered that 
purpose and made a deeper impression upon the 
average mind; a crucifix would have appealed 
more strongly to many; eloquent word paint- 
ing of the scene has often moved to tears men 
and women who have been unmoved by the 
Eucharist. True, our Lord did say: "This do 
in remembrance of Me," but He said also "He 
that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood 
hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the 
last day." And, that they might know what 
He meant by such strange words He told them 
" on the night in which He was betrayed," as He 
took the bread and blessed it, " this is My Body;" 
and of the wine " this is My Blood." St. Paul 
speaks of the Sacrament as being "the Com- 
munion of the Body of Christ," and "the Com- 
munion of the Blood of Christ," and multitudes 
have found rest unto their souls in the realiza- 
tion that at the table of the Lord they meet 
Him; that He is really present; that benefits 



THE SACRAMENTS. 133 

are given then and there ; that the bread and 
wine in the consecration become something more 
than bread and wine, viz., conveyors of spirit- 
ual, eternal life, as no other means are such. 
The Apostle again tells us, " He that eateth and 
drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh dam- 
nation to himself," and if there were simply the 
material elements unchanged how could there be 
so strong a statement required ? 

We need to remember that the efficacy of the 
Sacraments is not a vague, but a very definite 
thing. Sins are washed away in Baptism, par- 
don is transmitted to the penitent in absolu- 
tion, eternal life is given in the Lord's Supper. 
Otherwise, if we may not believe in definiteness 
in all instrumentalities and means of grace, 
what are we to understand by such expressions 
as V The Lord is in His holy temple ; let all the 
earth keep silence before Him?" Men may tell 
us, as they do, "The Lord is everywhere. We 
need not try to localize Him . He is in my house, 
in my shop, in my bank. He is everywhere that 
we go, and you are but minimizing the omnipo- 



134 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

tence of God when you say " The Lord is in His 
holy temple." But just because God knows man 
better than he knows himself, and realizing 
that he is a creature of time and sense — indeed 
had so made him — He gives to him those things 
which will enable him to apprehend the spirit- 
ual ; teaches him through eye and ear and taste 
and handling. God descended from heaven and 
took upon Him human form because we w r ere 
unable to apprehend Him sufficiently as a spirit. 
God for a space was localized in the person of 
Jesus Christ, and the continuation of that local- 
ization is going on always in the Sacraments. 
St. John says of the Incarnate One: "That 
which was from the beginning, which we have 
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which 
we have looked upon, and our hands have 
handled .... that declare we unto you." 
Further, the Sacraments are supernatual gifts 
of God that depend in almost insignificant de- 
gree upon the individual; indeed no human 
being can do anything to make the Sacraments 
effective, except to make them effective to him- 



THE SACRAMEXTS. 135 



self by fitting himself for their due reception. 
They are always the free gift of God, not pur- 
chased by any man's effort. They are like the 
seed which men cast into the earth. No human 
being in all these ages has been able to make a 
grain of wheat. He can make something that 
resembles it ; he can make something so like it 
as to deceive the eye of the most critical and 
expert, but when put into the ground it will 
not grow. The principle of life is not there, that 
comes from God alone. 

Now just as in the beginning God breathed 
into man's nostrils the breath of life and he 
became a living soul, so in the Sacraments it is 
God's part gives the life-giving principle. In 
Baptism, e.g., the individual may, by repentance 
and faith, localize, specialize, individualize to 
himself the death unto sin and the new birth 
unto righteousness. In the Holy Communion 
the individual may, hy meet preparation, avail 
himself of the benefits of the Body and Blood of 
Christ, may benefit by coming into the real pres- 
ence of Christ, but in either case the recipient 



136 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

simply avails himself of that which exists irre- 
spective of his own feelings or condition. 

The higher our view of the Sacraments the 
the more careful shall we be to prepare ourselves 
for their meet reception, the more shall we en- 
deavor to avail ourselves of all their benefits, care- 
ful that nothing be lost. If we feel that in the 
Lord's Supper there is but little, that it is simply 
a memorial, that it is a reminder of an historic 
event, there cannot be, it seems to me, that care- 
ful preparation, that devotion leading up to the 
celebration and reception o£ the Holy Commun- 
ion that there is when we look upon it as the 
meeting with Christ Himself, as the coming into 
His presence, taking Him into ourselves and 
being taken into union with Him. Such a view 
of the Sacraments instead of being a bringing 
down of the great truths of the spiritual life to 
the level of our material being, is a lifting up of 
this material being to the level of the spiritual. 
Through the Sacraments that touch our mate- 
rial being and lift it up, Christ is taking our hu- 
manity into heaven itself, enabling us to com- 



THE SACRAMENTS. 137 

prehend that it is our complete human nature in 
all its parts that He came to save, cleanse, 
purify and make fit for heaven and eternal life. 

But in intimating that this is Catholic doc- 
trine are we intimating that only they who ac- 
cept this are in union with Christ and, therefore, 
fit to be counted as at unity with the Church 
Catholic ? God forbid ! Even he to whom this 
feast is but a reminder of Christ's death upon 
the Cross, or he who looks upon it merely 
as an expression of good will towards those 
with whom he partakes — these and others, have 
a place with us so long as they do not, in the 
spirit of schism, refuse to allow us the more ex- 
tended and comprehensive view, nor insist upon 
leaving those who apprehend more, nor drive 
such from union with them. Nowhere is it truer 
than here, " He that is not against us is for us." 
Has not our own branch of the Church Catholic 
her own lesson of toleration yet to learn ? 

"We recall with pain the fact that this august 
and holy Sacrament, instituted by our Lord to 
be the sign of the unity of His brethren, should 



138 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

have become the subject of contention, an occa- 
sion of breaches of charity, and the cause of 
suspicion and separation. May we not, how- 
ever, indulge the hope that, notwithstanding 
our disputes and dissensions, there is a substan- 
tial agreement in devotion to our Blessed Lord, 
as realized, reverenced or remembered in this 
memorial of His love for sinners ? May we not 
predict the coming of a happy day when men 
shall come to that holy, ordinance, not with 
hard questions and in a controversial temper, 
but with the faith which is the evidence of 
things not seen and the charity which believeth 
all things ? "* Let us teach strongly the faith once 
for all delivered to the saints, but with charity 
for those who hold it only in part. 

* Dix : The Sacramental System, p. 173. 



V. 

The Historic Episcopate. 

BY THE REV. WILLIAM P. TEN BROECK, 

PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, 

SEABURY DIVINITY SCHOOL, 

FARIBAULT. 



V. 

Ube HMstoric Episcopate, 

By the Rev. William P. Ten Broeck, 

Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Seabury Divinity 
School, Faribault. 

(D). " The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the 
methods of its administration to the varying needs of the 
nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His 
Church. ' ' — Lambeth Quadrilateral. 

A S the nineteenth century runs to its close, 
this humiliating fact stares us in the face. 
The Church of Christ, though coterminous with 
civilization, sits powerless to save her own 
children from Moslem and Buddhist fanaticism, 
nerveless in the presence of heathenism, helpless 
to guide the counsels of them that govern, or 
sway the hearts of them that dwell in Christian 
lands. Yet, when but a feeble flock, she con- 
quered the Romans, converted the barbarian in- 
vaders, mastered the heathen Germans and 
Northmen, subdued the Slavs and Saxons. And 



142 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

why this sad contrast ? Because she is divided 
against herself by conflicting forms of govern- 
ment. Of old, Bishops, in brotherly emulation, 
concentrated the energies of the Church against 
the common foe. Differences of doctrine pro- 
voked quarrels, indeed, and dissensions, but they 
never crippled the Church, or stayed her onward 
march, so long as a common allegiance prevailed. 
They rather enlarged her energies. Loyalt}^ to 
the same government makes parties sources of 
strength, and differences of opinion promotive 
of a truer statesmanship. When dissensions 
run into dissent, when patriotism is lost in parti- 
sanship, when rival rulers are set up, then weak- 
ness and war ensue. So now, Pope against 
Patriarch; Presbyter versus Bishop; Preacher 
contra Presbyter; and Congregationalism at 
issue with them all — this is the spectacle that 
must almost make angels weep. Hence come 
the bitter rivalries, which exhaust the Churches 
at home, stunt and starve the Missions abroad, 
provoke the sneer of the skeptic and the sarcasm 
of the heathen, arouse the contempt of the Turk, 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 143 



alienate the masses, and compel the organization 
of Salvation Armies, Temperance Societies, 
Christian Associations, Leagues, etc., to try and 
do the Church's work. The very names — Poper\% 
Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, Congregational- 
ism — show that the divisions turn on questions 
of Polity. 

Afy Major Premiss, then, is, that a uniform 
Polity, adapted to the needs of the various na- 
tions, is the one thing the Church most wants. 
My Minor Premiss is, that the Historic Episco- 
pate, as set forth by our House of Bishops, and 
reissued at Lambeth by the Bishops of the Ang- 
lican Communion, is the only Polity that can 
supply the want. 

- As you are aware, four terms of Unity were 
laid down by the Bishops. In the first three 
there are differences between the first and final 
form. In the fourth, not so much as a word was 
altered. As to this, the Anglican Churches, all 
around the seas, in no wise doubt, in no way 
differ. That counts for much in the struggle and 
the issue. For it goes without sa\dng that, in 



144 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

all things hereafter to be done in Christendom, 
the Episcopal Churches of the Anglo-Saxon race 
will have the largest influence, wielding, as they 
do, the greatest religious force of the British Em- 
pire, and no small force in the United States. 

It is not to be expected that the assertion of 
the necessity of Episcopacy should be welcome 
to those from whose Church Polity, it has been 
eliminated. But, if it was a serious mistake to 
reject it, and if it is a great damage to the cause 
of Christ to refuse it, as we believe it to be, loy- 
alty to our Lord compels us to say so. Episco- 
pacy is not our device or peculiar possession. It 
is a sacred inheritance which we have received 
from Christ and His Apostles, along with the 
Bible, Creeds, and Sacraments. It is a trust 
which we hold for the common weal of Protest- 
antism. And so far from being ours exclusively, 
we are but a fraction among the Christians who 
hold to it as of necessity. Only our peculiar 
position in the midst of the Protestant Churches 
causes it to seem to be our distinctive feature 
and forces us to emphasize it. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 145 

All existing non-Episcopal forms of Church 
Polity were fashioned in the sixteenth century, 
by men, great, undoubtedly, and good, but cer- 
tainly not inspired, or specially commissioned of 
God. Were these at all alike, there might be some 
plea for claiming that they are only a recovery 
of what had been lost. But Luther's Super- 
tendency, and Calvin's Consistory, and Melville's 
Presbytery, and Browne's Independency, are so 
entirely inharmonious, that the conclusion is 
inevitable, that these gentlemen were simply 
reconstructing the Polity of the Church accord- 
ing to their own fancy, and contrary to the facts 
of the fifteen centuries that lay between them 
and the Lord Christ. And as works of fancy are 
called Novels, and the story cf facts is called 
History, we are compelled to call their Polities 
novel, and the Polity, which is according to 
facts, " Historic." 

The base fact of all is this. Government by 
Bishops was universal in the Church from the 
beginning of the second century to nearly the 
middle of the sixteenth. So says the Deist Gib- 



146 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

bon, "After we have passed the difficulties of the 
first century, we find the Episcopal Government 
universally established till interrupted by the 
Swiss and German Reformers." * Prof. Sohm of 
Leipsic, a Lutheran, asserts that, " In the begin- 
ning of the second century, the Presbyters were 
subject to the Bishop, whose name had a peculiar 
sense, and whose office had legal authority, "f 
Bishop Browne, in his Exposition of the Thirty- 
nine Articles, declares, that for " scarcely any of 
the undoubted events of ancient history does 
there exist anything like the weight of contem- 
porary evidence, that we have in proof of the 
prevalence of Episcopacy, in the second cen- 
tury." t " There is not a single great Church 
Historian from the Magdeburg Centuriators to 
Mosheim and Neander,"§ says Bishop Thompson, 
" who does not admit, that when the struggling 
Chrisl ianity of the earliest day breaks into the 
light, it is Episcopal." 

*Chap. xY.n. 112. 

t Outlines of Ch. Hist., p. 38. 

$ Am. ed., p. 560. 

§ Sermon on Historic Episcopate, p. 14. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 147 

How, then, came this to be? It came as 
Creation came. " God said, Let it be." It was 
so ordained by the Apostles, at the command of 
Christ, and under the direction of the Holy Spirit. 
This is our contention. Our reasons for the 
same are, as follows : 

"Bishops are by the will of Jesus Christ," 
says St. Ignatius.* "The Apostles instituted 
Bishops in the Churches," says Irenaeus. t " The 
order of the Bishops of the Seven Churches of 
Asia rests upon St. John as its author," says 
Tertullian. % These are the witnesses of the sec- 
ond century. Later on, Cyprian, § Athanasius, H 
Ambrose, || and Jerome** adopt the same, while 
St. Augustine declares, that "everybody knew 
that the Lord appointed Bishops." ft 

"Possession, actual and undisputed, consti- 
tutes, in time, sure and sufficient title," says 

*Ep. ad Ephes cap. 3. 

fAdv. Haer3. 3,1. 

JAg. Marcion, 4, 5. 

§Ep. 33 : 66. 

II Ep. ad Dracont. 

il On 1 Cor. 12, 28. 
**Ep. contra Montanum. 
ftOuaest. 0. and N. T., sec. 97. 



148 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

Blackstone. Bishops had actual and undisputed 
possession of authority for more than fourteen 
hundred years. Therefore their title is original 
and valid. Such is the Law of the matter. 

" What is held by the Church,'' says St. Augus- 
tine, " and has not been ordained by a Council, 
must be of Apostolic authority."* That Episco- 
pacy was held by the Church, everywhere in the 
early part of the second century, is beyond gain- 
saying. It was not ordained by a Council. 
Therefore it is of Apostolic authority. Such is 
the Logic of the situation. 

"An innovation or usurpation on Apostolic 
order," says Bishop Hobart, "could not have 
received universal sanction in the age next to 
that of the Apostles, without opposition or ex- 
plicit record." There is no vestige of opposition 
to Episcopacy in the second century; no line 
recording its introduction. Hence it was not an 
innovation or usurpation, but an Apostolic 
order. Such is the dictate of Common Sense. 

*Adv. Don. 5, 24. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 149 

" We fear not," says Judicious Hooker, " here- 
in to be bold and peremptory, that the first 
institution of Bishops was from heaven — the 
Holy Ghost was the author." For we believe in 
the Holy Ghost, and in the Holy Catholic 
Church. And we believe that in her He resides, 
for her He decides, over her He presides. There- 
fore from Him came her Polity. Such is the con- 
viction of Faith. 

"Christ loved His Church," says St. Paub 
"and gave Himself for her." The Bride of His 
Love could not, would not — could not be forced, 
would not be allowed to, leave at once the 
Shepherds of His choosing and run after strange 
and self- appointed pastors. This is the declara- 
tion of Love. 

Having, therefore, as we think, testimonj^, 
law, logic, common sense, faith, and love in sup- 
port of our contention, we abide steadfast in 
ourconvictionthat Episcopacy is of Divine origin. 

But this, it is said, is a presumptuous claim, 
uncharitable and exclusive. And why more pre- 
sumptuous than the claim that Presbyterianism, 



150 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

or Congregationalism, is the only Divinely or- 
dained Polity ! To presume is to take up with- 
out warrant. And who have done this ? Surely 
not we, who have only maintained what the 
ancient Church delivered to us. They, who have 
altered the customs and orders of fifteen cen- 
turies, are the presumptuous and self-willed, 
despising government, and speaking evil of dig- 
nities. And as for uncharitableness. Is it char- 
ity to brand as a usurpation the chosen govern- 
ment of the entire primitive and mediaeval, and 
four-fifths of modern Christianity? Is it charity 
to put Bishops under the tan as tyrants and 
intruders, to drive them out of Court and Com- 
mons ; to stamp the tens of thousands of Pres- 
byters, who sustain them, as abettors to tyranny; 
and the millions of laymen, who support them, as 
incapable of knowing that they are under bond- 
age ? Exclusive ! indeed ! Why Episcopacy in- 
cludes and requires the office and Divine author- 
ity of Presbyters. Presbyterianism and Congre- 
gationalism exclude the Bishops and denounce 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 151 

them as usurpers. Which is the exclusive? And 
which is the comprehensive system ? 

The advocates of Presbyterianism, being most- 
ly followers of Calvin, believe that all things are 
done absolutely according to God's will. They 
declare the Divine call to be always effectual, and 
the final perseverance of Saints to be eternally de- 
creed. And then they affirm that the regulations 
of the Ape sties were wilfully annulled by their im- 
mediate disciples ; that the calling of Presbyters 
to rule the Church availed nothing to keep out 
usurping Bishops ; and the perseverance of the 
Saints failed before the plottings of an ambi- 
tious hierarchy. 

A strange sort of predestination this, which 
concentrates the Divine energy trpon the sorting 
out of individuals into elect and reprobate, and 
leaves the Church to be the victim of human 
wilfulness. 

Are God and Nature then at strife ? 
So careful of the type she seems, 
So careless of the single life. 

Yes, if Episcopacy be a usurpation of the 



152 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

Divine right of Presbyterianism, God and Na- 
ture are at strife. 

So careless of the Church God seems, 
So careful of the single life. 

For, according to this theory, the grace of 
God was freely given to enable the Church to 
preserve the Bible and Sacraments, and to 
fashion Creeds ; but no grace was given for 
keeping intact the Divine Ministry which is for 
the Church's weal and direction. This she de- 
spised, and denied, and dethroned, at once, in 
favor of usurping Episcopacy. At length, after 
fourteen hundred and fifty dreary years, John 
Calvin restored it, for such as would recognize 
his Divine mission. Alas! however, the great 
mass of Christians were so perverse as to persist 
in believing that God had not forsaken His 
Church, and so obstinate as to insist upon re- 
taining the Ministry, which had come to them 
from the same hands as the Bible, the Sacra- 
ments, and the Creeds. This is what we are 
asked to believe. Credat Judseus Appella. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 153 

In justice, however, to Calvin, it must be 
said, that he asserted that, " in the Apostles' days, 
there was not equality among the ministers of 
the Church, but one was placed over the rest in 
authority and counsel." He simply claimed the 
right to alter. He did not pretend to restore. 
His excuse for setting aside Episcopacy was, 
that it was necessary and expedient so to do. 
But his plea of necessity has swollen into an 
assertion of the original right of Presbyterian- 
ism, and claims, that Calvin never dreamed of, 
are now set forth as stamped and sealed with 
a Divine warrant. "Astonishing transforma- 
tion," a recent advocate of the Presbyterian 
theory calls this alleged sudden and universal 
change to Episcopacy. I should say it was. 
As astonishing and unlikely as the transforma- 
tions of Aladdin's lamp. 

But, I am reminded that Jerome, an eminent 
Christian Father, asserts that Presbyterianism 
was the Divinely ordained Church Polity. 

What have you to say about this, Jerome ? 



154 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

" Before the days, when it was said, I am of 
Paul and I of Apollos, the Churches were gov- 
erned by a council of Presbyters. But after- 
wards it was decreed in the whole world, that 
one, chosen from among the Presbyters, should 
be set up over the rest and have the entire charge 
of the Church."* 

When did you live ? 

Three hundred years after the time of the 
Apostles. 

You evidently then do not speak from per- 
sonal or direct knowledge. Do you state it as 
an accepted, historic fact? 

O, no ! only as my inference from Holy Script- 
ure. 

Indeed, then, it is not history. Did any of 
your contemporaries agree with you ? 

There is no record of any. 

Have you the name of any one that lived be- 
fore you who agrees with you ? 

No. 

*Comm. on Tittis. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 155 

To whose authority do you ascribe the in- 
troduction of Episcopacy ? 

To the authority of the Apostles. This I 
have more than once asserted. 

For what reason did they introduce it ? 

" To remove the seeds of schism." 

Presb3^terianism then, you believe, failed to 
prevent schism ? 

Yes, I think it fostered schism. 

And Episcopacy is, in your judgment, neces- 
sary for the preservation of unity and was in- 
troduced for that purpose ? 

I have so expressed myself. 

That will do, Jerome. If our Presbyterian 
friends can find any comfort in your statements, 
they are welcome to it. I wish they would as 
candidly note 3 r our explanation of the abolition 
of their Polity, as they cordialry cherish your 
opinion of its antiquity. 

''Development from Presbyterianism in the 
natural course of events" is a mild, modern 
phrase, devised to get rid of the Apostolic origin 
of Episcopac\\ "Natural course of events.'' 



156 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

Is that Divine ? or Darwinian ? or Pickwickian ? 
If Divine, then is Episcopacy Divine. If Dar- 
winian, Christian Darwinianism makes the pro- 
cess of development an operation of God, and 
then Episcopacy is Divine. To deny its Divine 
origin makes this phrase Pickwickian. Any 
■way it is a begging of the" question. For the 
very point at issue is, what was the form of 
government at the first. We want proof, that 
it was anything else than what it was after- 
wards. High sounding phrases ought to have 
some basis of fact. The baseless fabric of a 
wish, requires a better buttress than the theory 
of development. For what is development? 
It is a process of change, in which continuity 
and similarity can be plainly traced. Where 
these are lacking, we call a decided change a 
creation, or a revolution. Now, no one will 
affirm that there is any continuity or similarity 
between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. They 
are clean contrary, in principle and practice. 
Therefore, the substitution of the one for the 
other could only be made by creation, or revo- 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 157 

lution. Of course, Presbyterians would deny 
that Episcopacy was a creation, for then it 
would be Divine. It can only, therefore, have 
come in by revolution. An ill-sounding word, of 
a truth, to apply to the acts of the primitive 
Church, but that is what sudden changes of 
government are called in all common fairness. 
Under no other name can the bitter hostility to 
Episcopacy be honorably accounted for. 

Again, it is said, Episcopacy provoked and 
justified its rejection at the time of the Reforma- 
tion. It was so bad. Yes, there were bad Bish- 
ops then; some of them simoniacal, some of them 
sensual, some almost Satanic. But why ? Be_ 
cause Popes and Kings were in league together to 
appoint Bishops, who could pay large fees, and 
sustain large pretensions . They were politicians, 
not Churchmen ; Peers of the realm, not Pastors 
of the flock; Attaches of the Court, not attached 
to the Cathedral. But put the blame where it 
belongs. Not on the Church, not on the institu- 
tion ; but on the age, on the Kings, on the Popes. 
And blame not indiscriminately. There were 



158 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

many good Bishops like Herman of Cologne, or 
Honest Hugh Latimer. Anyhow, which was the 
more manly thing? To reject Episcopacy, or 
abolish its abuses ? In England, Sweden, Mora- 
via, Episcopacy was preserved and purged. And 
its influence has gone out into all the world. 
What might not have been, if those, who abol- 
ished it, had joined in the magnificent task, 
which has brought the Bishops of all Commun- 
ions to be of one mould in abundant labors and 
splendid lives, however they may not be of one 
mind. I challenge our Republic to show any 
bodies of men more useful as leaders in good 
works, or more eminent as patterns of godliness, 
than our own House of Bishops, or the Roman 
Council of Prelates. In such an Episcopacy is 
the sternest rebuke of Mediaeval Prelacy, the full- 
est warrant for its own maintenance, and the 
amplest guarantee for its ultimate triumph. Its 
abuses have gone with those of kingship. Its 
use, its advantage, nay, its necessity is becom- 
ing every day more evident and convincing. 
Calvin once said, that he was deserving of anath 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 159 

etna who should refuse to reverence and obey 
Bishops, who subject themselves to Christ, as 
their only Head, and trace their authority to 
Him. I commend his words to his followers of 
the present, when such Bishops are and abound. 
I dare to say, that not a few of those, who, at 
Lambeth, made the Historic Episcopate a term 
of unity, are of that kind, whom to reverence is 
a duty, whom to obey is a delight. Yes ! the 
non-Episcopal Churches, and above all the Pres- 
byterian, could furnish many most fit to rule in 
the Kingdom of God. ! what a mighty im- 
pulse would the cause of Christ receive, if some 
of these would be no longer content to abide as 
simple pastors among the sheepfolds,tohear the 
bleatings of the flocks, but would come forth 
and be governors in Israel ! 

But there is small hope of help from the Pres- 
byterian Church in restoring Church Unity, if 
these words following fairly exhibit their spirit : 

"The General Assembly of the Bishops and 
Elders of the Presbyterian Church recognize the 
Historic Episcopate. They themselves adhere 



160 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

to the Presbyter-bishop of the New Testament 
and the Apostolic times. They find this Pres- 
byter-bishop in all ages of the Church in un- 
broken succession until the present day. They 
have endeavored to adapt this presbyterial- 
epicopate to the needs of the American people, 
and are ready to make any further adaptations 
that may seem to be necessary or important, 
and that do not conflict with the teachings of 
the New Testament. At the same time, they 
deem it their duty to testify against any claim 
of the Diocesan Episcopate to the exclusive right 
of ordination, as without warrant from the 
word of God, and as one of the chief barriers to 
Christian union." 

It is clear enough that the Presbyterians pro- 
pose to cling tenaciously to their peculiar Polity. 
I would that they might have set forth their 
views in phrases more fair. " Bishops of the 
Presbyterian Church," they avow themselves to 
be ; and since a Church, that has Bishops, is an 
Episcopal Church, this means that they are an 
Episcopal Church. Yerily, this is almost gro- 
tesque. A polity, created and named of a pur- 
pose to get rid of Bishops, claiming now to be 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 161 

made up of Bishops ! The times have indeed 
changed, and some folks are strangely changed 
with them. But, candidly, my friends, is it fair 
to ignore the use which the word " Bishop " has 
had in law and in language for eighteen centuries, 
and to summon its departed meaning from its 
place of rest to do duty in Christian controversy ? 
Usage governs among the world's people. It is 
a pity it cannot among Christ's people. Strange 
things can be brought to pass, by this sort of 
juggling with words. Our President might call 
himself Emperor. For is he not Commander-in- 
chief of the Army and Navy ? And that is what 
Emperor meant originally. I hardly think it 
would be safe for him to try it. It is a wonder 
that the Presbyterians have not availed them- 
selves of the fact that a Diocese was a parish in 
Constantine's day, and insisted that, as a parish 
Bishop is only a Presbyter, we are really all 
Presbyterians. What a wonderful way this 
would be to settle the vexed question of Church 
Polity ! How stupid the Irish have been, not to 
see that, because they are the original Scots, 



162 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

they are the rightful partners in the union be- 
tween England and Scotland. 

Again, "they adhere to the Presbyter-Bishop 
of the New Testament." And where in the New 
Testament is this compound word to be found ? 
The word Bishop and its derivatives occur in the 
original eleven times. Twice it is used of God, 
once of Christ, once of the office of Apostle, six 
times of the office of Presbyter, once of every 
Christian. Few words in the Bible have so 
wide an application. This is what makes it 
so eminently suited as the name of an Officer, 
who is Divine in authority, from Christ by de- 
rivation, Apostolic in succession, chosen from 
among the Presbyters, and yetbound by the sins 
and duties of an humble Christian. To make a 
compound word of Presbyter and Bishop, as 
though they were identical in use, is a sort of 
word-coinage one would not have looked for 
from a Christian mint. It has very much of the 
ring of the debased issue of a political cam- 
paign. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 163 

Again, " they find the Presbyter-bishop in un- 
broken succession in all ages of the Church." 
Of course they find a succession of Presbyters, 
because the Bishops kept it up. And they did 
also maintain a succession of Bishops and 
Deacons, in order to perpetuate in its fulness the 
Ministry which the Lord ordained. But this 
succession, the most palpable fact of history, 
these learned gentlemen coolly ignore. Cer- 
tainly, not because they do not know that it is 
the succession of Bishops, and not of Presby- 
ters, which is in dispute ; or because they do not 
know that Ecclesiastical usage, centuries ago, 
settled the meaning of the word Bishop, as the 
designation of a Successor of the Apostles, in 
distinction from a Presbyter. It is to be pre- 
sumed that the Council of Chalcedon is a truer 
exponent of correct Christian phraseology than 
the Presbyterian General Assembly. Its vener- 
able Fathers declared it to be " a sacrilege to re- 
duce a Bishop to the rank of a Presbyter." To 
the verdict of such an august tribunal we are 
more than content to leave this scheme of com- 



164 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

pounding the words Bishop and Presbyter, in 
order to confound them. Richard Hooker called 
this verbal sophistry "a lame and impotent 
kind of reasoning." Age and use have not im- 
proved its quality. No word fencing can parry 
the force of his peremptory challenge. " We re- 
quire you to find but one Church upon the face 
of the whole earth, that hath not been ordered 
by Episcopal regimen since the time of the 
Apostles." No compounding of words can set 
aside the cogency of the statement of the Eng- 
lish Reformers. "It is evident unto all men, 
diligently reading the Holy Scriptures and anc- 
ient authors, that from the time of the Apostles 
these have been three orders of Ministers in 
Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests and Deacons." 
These three great facts present themselves to 
one seeking for the truth. 1. Eor fifteen hun- 
dred years the Church lived and worked with- 
out Presbyterianism, and under Episcopacy. 
2. For three hundred and fifty years since, nine 
tenths of the Christian world have gone on, un- 
convinced of the preeminence of the claims and 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 165 

desirability of Presbyterianism, and persuaded 
of the rights and efficiency of Episcopacy. 3. 
After a trial for the same period of time, Presby- 
terianism has made scarce any impression on the 
English, and has almost disappeared from among 
the Erench and Swiss. Scotland is the only 
country of which it ever obtained control, and 
there, where it is the Established Church, and in 
America, where it has had a perfectly free field, 
it has parted into six, or more, opposing factions. 
While Episcopacy has been retained not only by 
all the unreformed Churches, but also by the re- 
formed Churches of the British Empire, Sweden, 
and Denmark,. the great Protestant nations of 
Europe. It is, moreover, a tremendous force in the 
Protestantism of Germany and America, and has 
everywhere maintained unity and prospered 
greatly. These are facts, that, like Banquo's 
ghost, will not down at the bidding of any 
theory. Their compelling logic we set over 
against the logic of the use of obsolete meaning 
of words, assured that there is no danger that 
the Presbyterian Bishop will ever supersede the 



166 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

Apostolic Bishop. Yea! having with us the 
overwhelming majority of living Christians, and 
happily conscious, that of the glorious host, 
who are tenting at the gates of the Celestial 
City, a hundred to one were folded in Episcopal 
Churches, we are content, nay, constrained, to 
abide under the rule of Bishops. 

But while Episcopacy, as a Polity, is of such 
long continuance, wide acceptance, and august 
origin, it exists under three different sorts. 
Hence the necessity of the word "Historic" to 
specify that for which we stand. These three 
are: 1. The Lutheran, which is also the Metho- 
dist. 2. The Roman. 3. The Anglican, Russian, 
Greek, Swedish, Old Catholic, Armenian, Nestor- 
ian, Moravian, Coptic, Abyssinian: i.e., " The 
Historic." 

The Lutheran view is this : The Divine Law 
makes no distinction as to rank and preroga- 
tive among the Ministers of the Gospel, yet it is 
necessary to the preservation of unity that 
some Ministers should hold a rank and possess 
powers superior to the rest.* In Germany these 

*Mosheim, iv., ii., 1. 4. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 167 

are called Superintendents ; in Denmark, Bishops. 
This sort of Episcopacy has no Divine original 
or succession, but is simply a human device and 
an elective function. Methodist Episcopacy is 
of the same character. 

The Roman theory is, that Bishops have, by 
God's appointment, authority in the Church, 
superior to Presbyters, with the exclusive right 
of ordination, but they are Satraps or Commis- 
sioned Officers of the Pope, in all things to him 
subordinate, and upon him dependent, as speaks 
the Vatican Council: " The Pope has full and 
supreme power of jurisdiction, ordinary and im- 
mediate, in all matters of faith and morals, dis- 
cipline and regulation, over all Pastors and 
people." Plain enough this and pretentious 
enough. 

The Historic view is, that Bishops have, by 
God's appointment, authority in the Church, 
superior to Presbyters, with the exclusive right 
of ordination, and are subject only to the Lord 
Jesus Christ and the Canons of the Church. 



168 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

From a comparison of these views it is evi- 
dent that the Lutherans and Romans are 
diametrically opposite. It is evident that in 
allegiance to the Pope lies the difference between 
the Roman view and the Historic. An enormous 
difference, but much common ground remains — a 
comforting thought in the discussion of Church 
Unity. It is also evident that as to the necessity 
of Episcopacy, in some form, as a bond of unity, 
the Lutheran view and the Historic are at one, 
but away apart as to its origin and authority. 
Lutherans and Methodists strip their Bishops of 
all special Divine authority, and make them 
mere exponents and agents of the people's, or 
preachers', will. Romanists strip their Bishops 
of all direct Divine authority, and make them 
mere exponents and agents of the Papal will- 
The Historic Episcopate ascribes to Bishops 
both special and direct Divine authority, and 
makes them exponents and agents of God's will, 
and the will of the Church, as expressed in her 
Canons. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 169 

Now none but the wildest devotee of Rome 
can imagine that Protestants, Russians, and 
Greeks will ever submit to the Papal See, while 
tokens abound everywhere of another reforma- 
tion in the Church of Rome. On the other hand, 
evidences are multiplying that the Lutherans 
are reaching out after a more real Episcopacy. 
Both the reformation and the reaching must 
result in the adoption of the Historic Episcopate. 
For minus the Papacy, or plus the Superintend- 
ence, equals the Historic Episcopate. 

How felicitous is that phrase, " Historic Epis- 
copate " ! How grandly it refers the question of 
the form of Episcopac\^to the verdict of the only 
true tribunal, that of History, where the logic of 
law and the logic of facts determine the issue, and 
records and events supply the evidence. How 
deftly it asserts that Polity alone to have 
authority and validity" which is set forth in the 
Canons and Decrees of the Church; whose use 
explains the progress ; whose abuse accounts for 
the decay ; whose non-use has caused the dead- 
ness of the Church, at various periods. Before 



170 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

the august tribunal of History let us present our 
plea and pray for an answer. 

It seems very strange that, when the Luther- 
ans concede Episcopacy to be necessary for the 
order and harmony of the Church, they should 
not ascribe it to God's ordaining, and esteem 
it accordingly. Pray ! what is human necessity 
but the Divine opportunity ? " That our Heav- 
enly Father knoweth that we have need" is 
the very basis of Providence and Religion. 
What ! Episcopacy necessary, and not ordered of 
God! And it is the followers of Luther that 
say it ! Mirabile dictu ! It is passing strange. 
And it is most sad and significant that Lutheran 
Episcopacy has not produced order and har- 
mony. In North Germany the Lutheran Church 
is kept together only by State support and con- 
trol. A recent Lutheran writer confesses that, 
independent of the State, Church government 
would be turned into party government, and that 
would be fatal to the life of the Church. Freder- 
ick William III., of Prussia, when petitioned to 
give autonomy to the Lutherans, said he would, 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 171 

if the " right hands," that is, real Bishops, were 
provided. William L, of Germany, declared that, 
lacking State control, only a strong Episcopacy 
could keep the Lutheran Church from going to 
pieces. In America the existence of four big rival 
synods and a number of independent little ones 
justifies his assertion. A sad sight this ; the dis- 
integration of the Church which bears the hon- 
ored name of Luther. 

- Nor has it fared any better with Methodism. 
How manifold its divisions, even in its short 
term of existence! Its Episcopacy, as an ad- 
hesive cement, has not proved a conspicuous 
success. It reminds one of the mended china 
seen sometimes on public exhibition. It carries 
great weight, but it won't stand hot water. 

"Bishops," says the Augsburg Confession, 
"have the power of the keys. Their duty is, by 
Divine appointment, to preach, remit sins, judge 
of doctrine, exclude the wicked ; and the Churches 
are bound to obey such Bishops agreeably to 
Christ's Word, "He that heareth you heareth 
Me.'" Good words these for our Lutheran 



172 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

brethren to ponder. They describe perfectly our 
own idea of Episcopacy. They prove that it is 
they, not we, who have wandered away from 
the principles of the Fathers of the Reformation. 
In September 1784, by the imposition of 
hands and prayer, John Wesley, Presbyter, did 
set apart the Rev. Thomas Coke, Presbyter, to 
be a " Superintendent " for America. Three 
years later, this title was changed, by a vote of 
the Methodist Conference, to "Bishop." Where- 
upon, Wesley wrote to Dr. Asbury : " How can 
you ? how dare you suffer yourself to be called 
a Bishop? I shudder. I start at the very 
thought. Men may call me a fool, a rascal, a 
scoundrel; and I am content. But they shall 
never with my consent call me Bishop. For my 
sake, for God's sake, for Christ's sake, put a full 
end to this." Good words these for the follow- 
ers of the sainted Wesley to ponder. Our Epis- 
copacy is that for which he contended, under 
which he lived, in communion with which he 
died. Methodist Episcopacy has no warrant 
from him, but only rebuke and rejection. 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 173 

To Rome's idea of a Bishop, we give most 
hearty consent. From her Papal annex, we 
most emphatically dissent. From this Medusa 
head, with snaky tresses, and an "I," that turns 
all it looks upon into stone, we recoil. And we 
assert unhesitatingly that the records of history 
show that the Papal authority was secured by 
fraud, and the events of history prove it to be 
fatal to liberty and Christian unity. 

In evidence of this we will take a glance at 
the table of contents of Church History. In the 
early period, six CEcumenical, and some three 
hundred Provincial, Synods picture for us the 
mind and methods of the Church. Up to the 
conversion of Constantine, the Bishops of each 
Province came together, as, and when they 
could, and took counsel and order for all mat- 
ters of discipline, now consulting with, and 
anon rebuking, their beloved brother of Rome. 
After that event, the Councils enlarged their 
scope. Constantine called one at Rome, A.D. 
313, as a tribunal to settle the Donatist quar- 
rel, but so limited was the authority of the 



174 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

Roman See, that this proved to be but little 
more than a moot-court. Another Council had 
to be called at Aries. It was this Council that 
settled the question. The judgment of Rome 
was not accepted as a decision by the Church. 
So St. Augustine affirms. 

To Constantine also was due the plan of 
holding CEcumenical Councils, whose binding 
force no Church is more ardent than the Roman 
in maintaining. And yet, the entire six, that 
are universally received, lack every element and 
trace of Papal jurisdiction. The Bishop of 
Rome had no share in summoning them. Neither 
his advice nor consent was asked. At none of 
them was he present. The decrees were not 
submitted to him for ratification, nor issued in 
his name, but in that of the Emperor. Nay 
more, the CEcumenical Councils repudiate Ro- 
man Supremacy. The first of Constantinople 
decreed, that the Bishop of Constantinople 
should have equal rights of honor with the 
Bishop of Rome. Chalcedon re-enacted the 
same with this notable comment: "The one 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 175 

hundred and fifty Bishops at Constantinople 
gave to the most Holy See of New Rome equal 
privileges with the See of Old Rome, rightly 
judging that the city, honored w4th the Sover- 
eignty and Senate, and enjoying equal political 
privileges, should also be made alike great in mat- 
ters ecclesiastical." Ephesus enacted that, "No 
Bishop should presume to assume control of a 
Province that had not been his from the begin- 
ning, and should give it up if he had done so ; 
that the Canons of the Fathers be not violated, 
and lest the vanities of worldly honor be brought 
in under pretext of sacred authority, and so, 
losing it, little by little, we at last forget the 
liberty which Christ hath purchased with His 
Blood." Listen! it is the voice of Prophecy, 
whose fulfilment is found in the story of the 
Roman See. The intoxication of temporal 
power and possessions; then the fiction of Di- 
vine Vicegerency ; and, at last, the loss and, what 
is worse, the forgetfulness of liberty, as in the 
fable of Circe. The anathematizing of Pope 
Yigilius, as a defender of heresy, by the Second 



176 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

of Constantinople, and the excommunication of 
Pope Honorius, as himself a heretic, by the 
Third of Constantinople, emphasize, most effect- 
ually, the repudiation by the other CEcumenical 
Councils of the Roman Supremacy. 

By reason of the fact that it was a body rep- 
resenting the whole Western Church, I add the 
testimony of the Council of Frankfort, called by 
Charlemagne, A.D. 794, to consider a request of 
Pope Hadrian, that a decree should be issued 
sanctioning the worship of images. The Coun- 
cil deliberately refused to do so, and condemned 
the opinions of the Pope. 

"In no Canon then," so say the living Bish- 
ops of Constantinople, and so say we, " and in 
no Father, for eight hundred years, does any 
hint occur that, in any way, the Bishop of Rome 
is the Head of the Church, or an infallible judge 
of other Bishops, or the Yicar of Jesus Christ." 

The Middle Ages are the period of the weary 
and dreary story of papal ambition and intrigue. 
The popular idea, assiduously cultivated by the 
advocates of Roman claims, is that the Pope had 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 177 

everything, then, his own way. Whereas, the fact 
is, that the Churches of Asia, Africa, and two- 
thirds of Europe, never yielded one wmit to his 
authority. Only in the western third of Europe, 
containing, at the most, scarce sixty million 
souls, did the Pope at any time receive any hom- 
age. Crusades against heretics, and Inquisi- 
tions ; in France, Pragmatic Sanctions ; in Ger- 
many, the Code of Melfi; in England, Magna 
Charta and Statutes of Praemunire and Pro- 
visors ; in Italy, Republican leagues — show that 
these countries were in chronic rebellion. So 
that it is simple fiction to assert that the Papal 
authorit\ T was ever widely accepted or accept- 
able. For a time, false Decretals and spurious 
Canons gave it a basis of assumed legality. But 
peaceful submission there never was, to any large 
extent ; or authorized recognition. The real at- 
titude of the Church in the Middle Ages toward 
the Papal supremacy is shown by the actions 
of the three Councils of the fifteenth century. At 
that of Pisa, two Popes; and at that of Con- 
stance, three Popes were deposed. At both of 



178 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

these, and also at Basle, General Councils were 
declared to be superior to the Roman See. 

Modern history is largely the story of resist- 
ance to the Papal claims. Their sanction by the 
Councils of Trent, and the Vatican, and their 
continual intrusion into the affairs and policies 
of the nations, have been the provoking cause of 
continual disturbance and legislation, from the 
Parliamentary Acts of Henry VIII. in England, 
to the late decrees for the expulsion of the 
Jesuits from almost every country of Europe. 
Out of the six great Powers, four are distinctly 
hostile, and would not allow a subject of the 
Pope to hold the reins of government. A fifth 
is — well, it is France. Austria alone is loyal, 
apparently. In the regions of liberty, power, 
and progress, the Papacy is simply tolerated. 
In the weak and decaying nations — some of them 
— it is obeyed. We may, therefore, dismiss to the 
limbo of the fairies the thought that Papal monoc- 
racy will ever become a center of unity for Christ- 
endom. With the Bishops of Constantinople, we 
can unhesitatingly say: "We are filled with 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 179 

unspeakable sorrow when we see the Papal 
Church refusing to contribute to the sacred 
cause of reunion, by a return to the ancient con- 
stitutions of the one, Holy, Catholic, and Apos- 
tolic Church of Christ." 

With these other words of the same Bishops, 
Ave pass to the subject of the Historic Episcopate. 
Each national Church -wholly independent and 
self-administering; governed by its Bishops in 
synods assembled, with all the Bishops on a per- 
fect equality ; each Bishop, also, absolutely inde- 
pendent and free within his own jurisdiction, 
subject, however and always, to the Decrees of 
the Councils — such was the ancient constitution 
of the Church. And such is the nature of the 
Historic Episcopate, which our Bishops assert 
to be one of the principles of Unity exemplified 
by the undivided Church Catholic during the 
first ages of its existence. Here is a perfect 
agreement between the Greek Church, with its 
large following and historic prestige, and the 
Anglican, with its wide influence and world wide 
ramifications. An agreement which includes 



180 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

also the ancient Churches of Africa, the illustri- 
ous Church of Sweden, the devoted Moravians, 
and the resolute Old Catholics. The Historic 
Episcopate is already, therefore, so wide spread, 
so comprehensive, so diverse in its adherents, so 
extensive in its diffusion, as to form an actual, 
practical, existing basis of Unity for a majority 
of the estranged families of God. 

And this is its glorious pedigree, by which it 
exhibits its lofty lineage. In the Jewish High 
Priesthood was its type and foreshadowing. In 
the Lord Jesus Christ was its first and full realiz- 
ation. He was the primal Bishop. In the Acts 
of the Apostles we find the expansion of the 
office into a College of itinerants, having both 
joint and separate jurisdiction over all the 
Churches. In the Epistles to Titus and Tim- 
othy, and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, 
we see the jurisdiction localized, and separate 
Dioceses created. In Constantine's masterly 
and sagacious reconstruction of the Empire was 
found the ready basis, upon which the whole 
system of Episcopacy was organized into Prov- 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 181 

inces and Dioceses, and locally adapted to the 
varying needs of the several peoples. 

And this is the glorious record by which it 
has asserted its Divine power. In the days of 
the planting of Christianity, Bishops were the 
directors of Missions and the organizers of 
Churches. In the era of persecution, they were 
the counsellors and enduring supports of the 
suffering flocks . In the age of heresies , they were 
the conservers and expounders of the Faith. 
Amid the horrors of barbaric invasion, they 
furnished the wise sagacity and fearlessness 
which wooed the rude sons of nature from their 
fierceness, and won them for Christ and civiliza- 
tion. In the dreariness of the Dark Ages, they 
fostered the learning that lit up the gloom, and 
supplied the rulers with their Chancellors and 
Counsellors of State. In the troublous times of 
the Reformation, they revived and preserved 
Apostolic order, in England, and Sweden, and 
Moravia. Under the brutalities of Moslem 
rule, they have maintained the life and vigor of 
Oriental Christianity. Episcopacy is to-day 



182 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

one of the greatest living forces of Christianity ; 
not alone in the British Empire, Sweden, and 
America, and in the domains of Russia, and in 
the Orient; but the enormous vigor which the 
Roman Church possesses is due to her Episcopal 
organization, and is in exact proportion to the 
independence and freedom of her Bishops, which 
are measured by their relative remoteness from 
the Pope. 

But some one will say: Granting all this, is it 
necessary to make Episcopacy a condition of 
unity? Is it right to place it along with the 
Bible, Sacraments, and Creeds ? Can there not 
be unity of heart, of charitable cooperation, of 
fraternal intercourse ; perhaps, even of common 
worship, without insistence upon any one form 
of government ? That depends upon what we 
want unity for. If only for dress parade, or 
platform exhibition, then let the question of 
government alone. But if we desire to conquer 
the world for Christ and to bring to naught the 
kingdom of evil, I trow that uniform govern- 
ment is of the first importance. Were men ever 



j.;j £pr>j;p.irz 



yet bound together effectively, or endtiringly. by 
any other tie than that of common government? 
Did Alliance ever do it? — which, being built 
np upon sentiment, is : is solved by selfish: icss 
Did a League ever do it ? — which, being the crea- 
tion of self-inter cst is the victim of anib: 
Did Confederation ever do it ? — which, being the 
result of compromise, is the prey of jealousy 
Greece fashioned an Alliar:r ^aul formed a 
League. Rome organized a Government. 
Rome conquered both Greece and Gaul. The 
Hohenstaufens were at the head : a C confedera- 
tion : the Popes at the head of a strong Govern- 
ment. The result is writ at large in history 
Our forefathers established a well governed 
Union. Some of their descendants set up a Con- 
federacy. The Union abides. The Confederacy 
is a completed chapter. But why multiply in- 
stances ? YVe all know that, in the loss, or for 
the lack of. a strong central government, noth- 
ing can atone or compensate. 

Moreover, in the great Universe, what is the 
basis of harmonY. but submission to the one 



184 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION. 

Lord and Governor of all ? No laws of attrac- 
tion, or cohesion, or motion, can bind the stars 
together and make them tread in their appointed 
circuits, except as they rest upon this supreme 
fact. And how can it be otherwise in the 
Church? Revelation, Faith, Sacraments cannot 
dispense with, or supplant, the order of govern- 
ment which the Lord established. These all 
lead up to and require a Ministry to preserve 
them and make them effectual, and if the Minis- 
try be not one, then will not these be one. And 
indeed, alas ! they are not. 

Furthermore, what is schism but a revolt 
from the government of the Church — a setting 
up of a rival organization, of another ministry ? 
It is the ecclesiastical equivalent of secession. 
How then is Christianity ever going to be healed 
of its schisms, except by a return to the form of 
government from which the schismatics seceded? 

Oh! that men would only stop to think se- 
riously, then would they see that this question 
of Church Government lies at the very basis of 
Unity ; and that to ignore it would be a farce, to 



THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 185 

omit it would be a fraud. Our Bishops have 
not set forth the Historic Episcopate as one of 
the final terms of Unity, because it is their own 
view and possession ; or even because it is primi- 
tive, practical, and w r idely prevailing; but because 
it is fundamental, indispensable, and necessary. 
Compromise, or evasion, is too apt to be the 
object of men's utterances. Some schemes of 
unity, lately set forth, read as though they were 
spoken of a purpose to avoid or defeat it. Some- 
times God moves men to utter words of spirit 
and of life, of power and inherent truth. Such, I 
believe, are those words of the Lambeth Confer- 
ence : ' ' The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted 
in the methods of its administration totheva^- 
ing needs of the nations and peoples called of God 
into the Unity of His Church . ' ' Certainly, if His- 
tor\ T can teach us any lessons, and God's Provi- 
dence is therein the controlling factor, then will 
the principle, set forth in these words, go on con- 
quering and to conquer, until all who bear the 
name of Christ are at unit}^ among themselves. 



186 UNITY AND THE LAMBETH DECLARATION 

In the future, as in the past, Episcopacy will 
draw to itself those ardent souls, who, weary of 
schism, desire to dwell in the fellowship of the 
Apostles. The vested interests, and wilfulness, 
and selfishness of sectism are too strong to 
allow hope of speedy realization of full unity. 
But mighty cyclones of judgment will yet sweep 
away the vested interests. The Spirit of God 
will either control, or conquer, the wilfulness. 
And as for selfishness, surely it must be shamed 
into love, as down into the souls of men the 
Grace of Christ distils the infinite pathos of His 
Passion prayer : " That they may be one in Us, 
that the world may believe that Thou hast sent 
Me." 



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The Word and the Book. 



Letters on the Higher Criticism: By the Rev. John J. El- 
mendorf, S.T.D. , late Prof < ssor at the Western Theologi- 
cal Seminary. Net, 50 cts. 

From Jerusalem to Jerusalem. 

Lectures on the Church, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic: 
with a brief lecture on the Anglican Communion. By 
t v e Rev. Alfred J. Belt, M.A., rector of St. James' 

Church, Guelpb, Canada. Net, 75 cts. 

« 

The Life and Example of Saint Andrew. 

By the Rev. E. P. Chittenden. Dedicated to the Brother- 
hood of St. Andrew. Net, 50 cts. 



23rd Thousand. 

REASONS FOR BEING A CHURCHMAN. 

Addressed to English-speaking Christians of 
Every Name. By the Rev. ARTHUR WYLDE 
Little, L. H. D. Cloth bound, net, $1.00. 
Paper covers, 50 cents. 

The Acknowledged standard book in the Anglican 
Communion. 



2d Thousand. 

THE CHURCH IN THE PRAYER BOOK. 
A Layman's Review of Worship. 

By Edward Lowe Temple, M. A. With a 
Commendatory Preface by . the Rev. Samuel 
Hart, D. D., Secretary of the House of Bishops. 
Price, net, $1.25. By mail, $1.35. 

The most complete review of the Prayer Book 
ever Published. It should be used as a Text Book 
for advanced classes in every parish, and read gener- 
ally throughout the American Church. It is the 
only book to give a comprehensive "idea of every 
page of the Prayer Book. 



SOME AMERICAN CHURCHMEN. 

By Frederick Cook Morehouse. A Series 
of Short Biographical Sketches, with portraits. 
Cloth $1.00, net. 

Sketches of Samuel Seabury, William White, John 
Henry Hobart, Philander Chase, John, Henry Hop- 
kins,' Sr., Jackson Kemper, William Augustus Muhl- 
enberg, James Lloyd Breck, James de Koven. 

The following notice is from The Church Times: 

"The longest biography is that of James de Koven, War- 
den of Racine College, a priest of great piet}^, whose person- 
ality made itself felt far and wide through the American 
Church, and a Catholic theologian who was a great power 
in her Councils. The volume is illustrated with portraits, 
and is written from a thoroughly Catholic standpoint. We 
wish it a wide circulation on both sides of the Atlantic." — 
Church Times (London). 

"Mr. Morehouse has done yeoman's service for the rank 
and file of the coming Church Army, by putting these bio- 
graphies of some of the apostles, confessors and martyrs of 
the American Church in readable type, at a low cost, and 
with sufficient detail for practical uses. Would that this 
Church had more of such literature to place on the shelves 
of her parish and Sunday School libraries. Mr. Morehouse 
has shown excellent judgment both in what he omits and 
what he inserts In the rush of modern ecclesi- 
astical movement, there is urgent need that the rising gener- 
ation shall be taught to look into the rock from whence 
they were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence they were 
digged, and there is great peril that such education will be 
neglected for the sake of more showy 'accomplishments.' 
We thank Mr. Morehouse for his book, and beg him to make 
it the beginning: of a series." — The Churchman. 



THEOLOGICAL OUTLINES. 

A series of concise and accurate Theological Propositions 
covering- tbe whole field of Dogmatic Theology, from the Anglo- 
Catholic point of view, with abundant references under each 
head. Intended to satisfy the requirements of a Text Book 
for Theological Students, a Doctrinal Promptuary for Preach- 
ers, an Index or Modern Theological Literature, a Dic- 
tionary of Doctrine, and a Handy Manual for the Clergy 
and Laity. 

Vol. J.— The Doctrine of God. 50 cents, net 

Vol. II.— The Doctrine of Man and of the God-man. 75 cents, 
net. 

Vol. III.— The Doctrine of the Church and of Last Things. 75 
cents, net. 

The Trinity (N.Y.) Record says of Vol. II, that under its 
heads "is arranged a singularly compact, ciear and strong 
instruction in Positive Dogmatics, soundly Catholic, and sup- 
ported at every point by a highly useful array of authorities, 
Scriptural and other. The far-reaching brevity of this book 
would make it a very valuable manual for laymen, and we are 
compelled to add, for some of the clergy also. The style is 
luminous." 



THE HISTORICAL POSITION 

of the EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 

A Paper read before the Church History Club of the Baptist 
Divinity School of the University of Chicago; and published 
under the auspices of the Chicago Clericus (Episcopal). 71 pp. 
Price, in paper, 10 cents net; cloth, 50 cents. 

The Living Church says: " Taken as a whole, we know of no 
presentation of the Church's claims which can compare with 
this in conciseness, clearness, and force combined, none which 
bases itself so squarely upon the authoritative standards of the 
Church." 

Published by 

THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO., 

Milwaukee, Wis. 



FOR BROTHERHOOD MEN. 

LIFE AND EXAMPLE OF ST. ANDREW. 

By the Rey. E. P. Chittenden. Price, 
50 cents, net. 



An exceedingly stimulating and suggestive 
little book for all members of the Brother- 
hood of St. Andrew. It has been written in 
the very spirit of the saint whose life and 
deeds it records. We have no doubt it will 
take and hold a high place in the literature of 
that Brotherhood which numbers now so 
many thousands of earnest and devoted 
young men all over the country. Every de- 
tail of St. Andrew's life is carefully studied, 
and, after reading Mr. Chittenden's little 
book we can easily see the great wisdom of 
choosing St. Andrew for the patron saint of 
an association whose great rules are prayer 
and service. 

Though primarily dedicated to the Brother- 
hood of St. Andrew, it will appeal to every 
Christian who is trying to imitate St. An- 
drew in leading men and women to their 
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. — The Church 
man. 



THE STORY OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



WITH TEXT BOOK APPENDIX. 



By Miss L. L. Bobinson. Beautifully Illustrated with Half 
Tone Beproductions of Hofmann's Scenes in the Life 
of Christ. 270 pages. Attractively bound in cloth. 

PRICE, 75 CENTS, NET. 



Press Notices : 

We are not very much in love with books of this class, for 
we believe that the story of the Blessed Life as told in the Gos- 
pels, ought to be sufficient even for children aided by intelli- 
gent teaching. But Miss Bobins n has done her work so well 
and in such a reverential spirit that we cannot but commend it 
for the use of young people. The e is an appendix of very 
useful questions with references which greatly enhances, the 
value of the book. It would be a good text book for Bible 
classes. It is beautifully illustrated from Hofman's pictures. 
—Pacific Churchman. 

This book certainly fills a place. It is one of the very few 
books of this prolific age that is positively needed. A life of 
the dear Lord founded strictly on the gospel narrative, without 
flights of imagination, clothed in graceful and simple language; 
it cannot but captivate the attention of every reader, young 
or old. Nothing has appeared so completely adapted to give 
young readers a vivid, full and systematic conception of our 
Lord's life on earth. The beautiful illustrations from Hof- 
mann's Scenes in the Life of Christ, do much toward clearly fix- 
ing the impress of the "old, old story." And then fifty two short 
chapters of questions in the appendix with constant Scriptural 
references, render the work a text book which will give to pupils 
the entire knowledge of the Christian year of the Church. It 
would be a blessed thing if this "Story of Jesus of Nazareth" 
could find a place in every home in the land.— Church News 
(St. Louis.) 

Published by 

THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO., 

Milwaukee, Wis. 



